The Cause of Death Read Free Page B

pulled out the container holding Cinnabex's component. He set it down on the ground and watched as the lid opened itself one last time.
    The component lost no time in climbing out of the container, the thin wires that connected it to the hardware inside trailing after it. It stood up on two of its six legs, and faced Georg, looking up at him through the leg-eyes of its two uppermost legs. "I must speak now, before I detach myself from the comm gear," it said, Cinnabex's voice coming to him through his earphones. "I must speak, and you must listen."
    Georg knew what was coming, and knew there was no chance of agreement--but also knew how much he owed Cinnabex, and how very much Cinnabex had earned the right to be heard.
    "Go on," he whispered.
    The starfish drew itself up to its full twenty centimeters of height and faced Georg as Cinnabex's voice chimed in his ear. "The only way--the only way--for you to survive this crisis, and achieve your goals, and, perhaps, save this world from collapse, will be if you do what the Reqwar Pavlat require. You must weigh your honor, and your beliefs, and your oaths, against all that will be lost if you persist in your present course. Go on as you have, and our project will be canceled, all our work wasted--and the very survival of Reqwar's terrestrial ecology will be set at risk." The starfish paused for a moment, then gestured with two of its arms, a remarkably good imitation of a human shrug. Cinnabex had always been good at that sort of thing. "That is all. Now I must detach myself, and go. You know what to do with the container. You have about six minutes."
    "I know," said Georg. "Thank you, Cinnabex, for everything. Thank you, and good-bye."
    "May it instead be but farewell. Let us think on the time when the rest of me greets all of you once again."
    "Farewell then," Georg said, resisting the absurd urge to reach down and shake the component by its nonexistent hand.
    The component folded its four uppermost legs back, and deftly detached the wires connecting it to the compartment. Then it swung its legs forward again and dropped down to stand on all sixes for a moment. It raised its two side legs and extended them to give those leg-eyes maximum binocular vision.
    One of the eyes glanced up at George, and the little creature started back a handbreadth, as if surprised to see him there. Detached from the rest of Cinnabex, the component had already forgotten everything, lost everything. It turned its back on Georg and headed out into the brush. The creature's survival instincts would drive it to find some place safe to hide--but there was no place it would be safe from the enzymes set loose in its body when it detached itself from the comm system. The enzymes would start to dissolve the little creature's organs within a few minutes, killing it. Those enzymes would continue their work past death, dissolving the creature's body entirely, leaving nothing but a puddle of unidentifiable organic goo that would quickly seep into the soil.
    It was a standard security precaution, and quite sensible when dealing with an expendable component organism, but it still didn't sit right with Georg. A wave of guilt and shame washed over him. Cinnabex had been right to ask the price of his honor. Was the death of this little bit of Cinnabex merely the first small down payment?
    Georg pulled his hunting knife from its sheath and stabbed at the soft ground, then clawed the dirt out with both hands. He quickly had a thirty-centimeter-deep hole big enough around to hold the container. He shoved it in, filled in the hole, and flattened the loose dirt with his hands, then spread leaf litter and other debris around the disturbed area. He knew the odds were extremely high that the Pavlat would find it, but it didn't hurt to make an effort. The real point of burying the thing was to dampen the series of small self-destruct explosions that were due in about three minutes' time. If the Pavlat did open the hole, they