The Cause of Death (47 page)

"Abdication is perfectly possible, and legal, and there are precedents," said Marta. "I researched that point long, long ago."

"Abdications are legally
possible
, yes," said Darsteel, "but an abdicating Thelm might as well sign his own death warrant."

"That," said Marta, "would have suited me fine. In any event, I pulled out a letter of abdication that I had drawn up myself, and slapped it down on the table--and I 'accidentally' chose the table that had the dueling pistols on display.

"I pulled out my pistol and threatened the Thelm with it, demanding that he sign the letter. I fired the one round in my gun past his head, a deliberate miss. The slug lodged in the wall behind his head."

"We didn't find any spent rounds lodged in the wall," Darsteel objected.

"We had no reason to look for one," said Brox. "But we have a reason now." He gestured to Marta.

"It's there," Marta said. "And I'm sure the Thelm thought it was a gift from the gods. It was beautiful, perfect evidence that
I
had tried to kill
him
. He could shoot me, and say quite truthfully it was self-defense--and all his troubles would be over. I could see it in his eyes. He worked it all out in the blink of an eye. So far as he could tell, I had just handed him a golden opportunity."

"Wait a second," Jamie said. "Why? How?"

"Because the eldest son is only required to kill his father the Thelm if the Thelm is over a certain age, if the son is over a certain age--
and if the son is married
. The Thelm's children are not permitted to divorce during the Thelm's life and for four years after his death, for various purposes of protecting inheritance--but also to prevent them from using divorce as a loophole in a situation like this one. But the succession law doesn't deal with the case of a father ending the son's marriage by killing the daughter-in-law in self-defense."

Hannah stared at her prisoner, and her guts ran cold. What sort of mind could set up a trap within a trap within a trap like that--and have the nerve, the will, to set it in motion against the ruler of an entire planet? Marta Hertzmann was one tough piece of work.

"I lowered my gun, just a trifle, and demanded again that he sign. Instead he snatched up one of the dueling pistols and pointed it at me. He ordered me to put my hands up, to drop the gun. I did. And he raised his gun, and fired."

The room was silent for a moment, but then Marta went on. "I had used low-power, low-yield dueling rounds to make my suicide rounds. A bit more powerful than a training round, or whatever it was, that you tricked Georg into firing. But even so--the damage it did was remarkable. I was stunned, shocked. But I didn't have the luxury of staying that way. I got out the shoe I had brought with me, knocked over a plant, and placed one shoe print. If there hadn't been two human investigators on-planet, I would have risked putting both shoes on and walking through the dirt, and then around the room or something--but I assumed you two would spot that the shoe prints were too shallow for a man Georg's size, or that I'd get the length of stride wrong, or whatever. One print was risky enough.

"Then I went to get the gun out of the Thelm's hand--and I couldn't. It wouldn't look much like Georg had done it if there was a gun in the Thelm's hand, and there was obvious evidence that it had literally backfired. I tried like blazes to open his hand, but I had to give it up. I didn't have much time before some servant came in or the like. I decided to hide my evidence with fire. I had brought a firestarter with me to get rid of the abdication letter, and I tried using it to light the carpet he was on. Nothing. I tried pouring out the liquors in the drinks cabinet, and setting fire to things with that, and found out the hard way that Pavlat liquor isn't flammable. I knocked over the drinks cabinet, to make it look like the bottles had fallen out during a fight or something--just to confuse the issue.

"But then I remembered. Georg liked a vodka martini of an evening, now and then, so naturally the Thelm had gotten some vodka in. But he hadn't just ordered a case or two brought in from Earth. He had ordered two-hundred-liter tanks of the stuff--and they were kept in the pantry, behind the service door I had just blocked by knocking over the tree and making the footprint. It wasn't easy getting through that door without disturbing the plant or the footprint, but I did it. I filled whatever burnable or meltable containers I could and brought them back in the room. I splashed the vodka where I could, then started the fires."

"Ah!" Darsteel cried out, and turned to Jamie. "That is why you asked for a report on Earth-style food and drink stored in the pantry. Now I understand."

Marta glared at Darsteel, annoyed that someone would interrupt her story, and apparently forgetting that it was also her confession. "Anyway, I poured vodka on the carpet and tried lighting it again. The liquor lit up immediately, but the carpet fabric itself just wouldn't burn. But the rest of the fire was going very nicely, burning so hot I had to retreat. Some big chunk of burning debris dropped down on the display table, so I couldn't get to the other dueling pistol and swap out the second suicide round. Besides, I didn't want to get too close, for fear the heat would touch off the rocket propellant in the round. I got out, got back down to our apartments, and waited for the fire alarm to sound. I woke Georg and Moira, and we left the building together."

The room was quiet again, and Marta looked around at all of them, a defiant look coming back to her face. "So that's how I did it," she said. "That's how I saved my daughter from your brilliant idea to have her exiled to a place full of killers and psychopaths. That's how I saved my husband's life. That's how I kept a pompous idiot like the High Thelek from ascending to the Thelmship and wrecking the planet. And that's how I
nearly
made myself the richest woman in the universe. Do you really want to tell me I was wrong?"

Hannah Wolfson thought of how close the planet had come to civil war, how close to the Thelek's coming in and wrecking the genetic decrypting project, treating it like a building project where the low bidder was your brother-in-law and maybe he'd skimp on the concrete mix, but everyone would get a cut.

She thought of an old man, guilty of scheming and plotting and worse, manipulated into defending himself, and getting himself killed in the process. She looked at Marta and thought again of the mind capable of setting up such a circumstance. What would Reqwar have looked like, five, ten, twenty years after the person capable of
that
plot got her hands on the planetary finances--then started deciding she deserved a reward or two for doing the world so much good? What sort of reputation would
that
have earned humans among the Elder Races?

She thought of the simple, clumsy, naive, heartfelt, lovely Pax Humana oath, and the ocean of good intentions it represented. Did the Reqwar Pavlat, or humanity's reputation, or Pax Humana need a woman capable of turning those words inside out in charge of
anything
? Hannah looked Marta Hertzmann in the eye, and spoke. "Yes," she said. "I do want to tell you that you were wrong. With all my heart, and all my soul, I do."

She stood up, and so did Jamie. Hannah looked at Darsteel, and gestured to Marta. "Take her away," she said. "She's all yours. Maybe, once you decide how you want to handle her, you'll want us to come and collect her to serve her time on Earth, or Center--or Penitence. Just give us a call, and we'll come get her."

* * *

The ascension ceremony went off without a hitch, albeit a few minutes late, and in spite of the fact that the Thelm-Designate, and several of his guests, complained of a loud ringing noise in their ears, and looked slightly disheveled, and had the slightest smell of gunpowder in their clothes. The inevitable reception--a most subdued affair, under the circumstances--followed immediately afterward. The Thelm-Designate, that was, the newly minted Thelm, stayed in the main room long enough to greet everyone, thank everyone, and accept everyone's condolences. Then he vanished, leaving the party to go on without him.

Hannah was not surprised when one of Darsteel's people relayed a whispered summons to her a few minutes later. She was even less surprised to be led to a comfortably appointed side room, stocked with human-style chairs as well as sitting cushions and perching stools--and least surprised of all to see Brox, Darsteel, and Jamie coming in right after her, or the new-made Thelm relaxing in the biggest and most comfortable chair, drinking what looked very much like a double vodka martini.

Thelm Georg greeted them all, had someone take their orders for food and drink, and sat them all down. Once the pleasantries were done, he did not speak at first, but instead merely took a sip or two of his drink and stared off into space. At last it seemed he had found the words he needed, and he spoke.

"This is the strangest, saddest, happiest day I have ever had," he said. "I am guest of honor at a party the day after my adoptive father's death. My daughter is safe from Penitence, but she has lost her mother. My wife has killed my father--but now the way is clear for us to save this planet's terrestrial ecology. It is too much, and it is too sudden--and there is far too much that must be done at once, too many duties I must see to immediately. I don't have
time
to feel all the things I should feel.

"But I knew I
must
take time to speak with all of you to say thank you. Thank you for more services done for me and my people than I can even express. One of the judges of the Court of High Crime explained to me what, exactly, dying 'properly' means. It's a lot more complicated than I thought. If I had been allowed to go on the way I was going, it would have been just about impossible to convince anyone that I wasn't in a conspiracy with my wife--she does the crime, I take the blame and credit. I shudder to think where we would have been a few months from now if I hadn't flunked your little test."

"You
passed
the test, with flying colors," said Hannah. "Except for the questions where we knew you knew the answer, you got every single answer wrong. You told a good story, a convincing one--except you included all the misleading details we had given you."

"But why, exactly,
did
you give them to me?"

"By that time, we knew, or just about knew, either you or Marta had done it. As a matter of physical possibility, you
might
have done it. And you had a good strong motive for it, too. But as a matter of logic, if
you
were going to commit the act, it made no sense at all for you to do it in the way it was done--but it
did
make a sort of strange, warped sense for Marta to do it that way. For her, it was rough justice. The Thelm would only be punished if he tried to attack her. When you declared that
you
had done it, we assumed you were acting to shield her."

"I was acting to shield
Moira
," Thelm Georg said sharply. "The moment the Thelm was dead, I at least knew all of us, most importantly Moira, were safe from Penitence, and that was the main thing. But it didn't take me long to figure out it was very likely Marta who had done it, and all the information that came to me during the night confirmed it. I realized that I was very likely to become Thelm very soon."

He sipped his drink again. "Pax Humana likes Paxers to marry among themselves, and the Senior Members like to do matchmaking. There was a lot of pressure put on me, and on Marta, to marry each other--but they didn't worry so much about compatibility. The Senior Members look for pairings of talent, and trust for love to blossom between the couples once they are together. Sometimes it works. Not with us, even though we tried. Things between Marta and me had been rocky for some time. And let's just say that her killing my adoptive father wasn't going to improve our relationship." His face hardened. "But I did not want Moira to lose her mother. If I took the blame for the crime, I could keep Marta from facing charges."

Did it occur to you that Marta more than likely had figured all that out, and probably
expected
you to take the blame for Moira's sake, counted on it, manipulated you into it?
Hannah wondered. But that was not the sort of question you asked the Thelm. "That was basically what we worked out," she said.

"But then you had to decide what to do about it," said Thelm Georg. "I must admit I am very curious. How did you come up with your plan?"

"Well, sir, we needed to prove you
hadn't
done it--and also that Marta had. We decided to give you all the hints we dared that the fire damage to the room, and to the Thelm's corpse, were worse than they really were. We fed you a version of the crime that
Marta
knew was wrong--but we needed her to believe that
we
had gotten everything wrong. We wanted her to think we had very scanty evidence, and that we were misinterpreting what we had.

"She knew it was a chest shot, not a head shot. The Thelm was shot from the front, not the back. He was standing, not sitting on a perching stool. He was killed by a shot from less than a meter away, not one from more than two meters away. But she didn't dare warn you, in case we
were
getting it all wrong for real."

"But what was the point of it all?" asked Thelm Georg.

Hannah answered. "The Thelm would not have died 'properly' if you had conspired with Marta and had her do the killing. What we needed to know, beyond a doubt, and needed to prove, was that you had
not
conspired with her, that she had done it all herself. If you were prepared to buy into all our false clues--and fire a gun that the killer had to know might still have a suicide round in it--then that would be the proof we needed."

"I'm not quite sure I should be cold-blooded enough to ask this question," said Thelm Georg, "but, leaving all morals and ethics out of it, why would it have really mattered if I
had
conspired with her?"