The Cause of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

new budget is approved and the funds are actually disbursed to our accounts. If I make changes now, it will make us look very bad. It might give someone an excuse to shut us down."
    "Come on. You're saying you can't risk taking a step that might save your agents' lives because it might delay our budget allocation?"
    "Not just delay it," Kelly said sharply. "Cancel it. Meaning the BSI itself might not survive." She gestured out the viewport at the planet Center. "The Director and the rest of the bigwigs at On-Planet HQ have asked for contingency plans for pullbacks. For being more selective about what cases we handle. So selective that we might as well not even be here.
    "If we just take on 'near-zero-risk-to-agent cases,' to use the happy phrase of the Director's memo, some other smart little bean counter is going to notice that we're not doing anything the local cops couldn't do, and they'll shut us down. It will be the end of whatever good the BSI has done for human civilization outside the Solar System. And I happen to think we do a lot of good. We save lives. We uphold the law. We show the Elder Races that humans are willing to clean up their own messes. Maybe we've even prevented a war or two. So yes, reluctantly, I am risking my agents' lives to prevent budget cuts that might end up crippling our relations with the Elder Races for the next thousand years."
    Kelly hesitated a moment, then turned to stare at a blank spot at the wall to Hannah's left. At last she spoke. "Off the record, Cho bought into the 'one-agent-one-case' idea. He declined when I asked if he wanted to partner up. With you."
    Kelly let out a long and weary sigh, then went on. "I didn't make it a direct order. I should have. So Cho is on my conscience." She turned and looked sharply at Hannah. "I don't want you two on my conscience. Effective immediately, you have standing orders to keep Jamie Mendez alive. Just forgetting for one moment that he's a nice kid and we don't want to see him die, politically speaking, it would be a disaster for the BSI to lose any more new agents just now--much worse than suddenly making big changes to how we manage agents. I'll have a bad enough time with the higher-ups over Cho's death. And I can't just keep the baby agents in-house. I have to send them out. But if we lose any more agents--especially new ones--that could be the last nails in BSI's coffin."
    Hannah nodded. "Orders received and understood," she said. There didn't seem to be anything else she could say.
    "Good," said Kelly. "Then just let me page Mendez in here for the case briefing."
    "Excuse me?" Hannah asked.
    "You didn't think this conversation was just academic , did you?" Kelly asked with a grim smile. "I'm assigning you two to a fresh mission--right now."

THREE BRIEFING
    Jamie wasn't all that surprised to get called into Kelly's office five minutes after Hannah. One quick look at each of their faces told him what--or rather whom--they had been talking about.
    Kelly gestured Jamie into a seat, then launched in. "I've got a job for the two of you," she said. She shoved a message sheet across the table so that it rested exactly between Hannah and Jamie. "That just came in from Reqwar. And before you can say you've never heard of Reqwar, neither had I until I looked it up. It's one of the minor Pavlat worlds."
    Jamie picked up the message sheet. There were various dating and chrono and coordinate codes, but the message itself was printed in larger type, in the center of the page.

    HUMAN GEORG HERTZMANN FREE
    NOT GUILTY NOT PAVLAT DEATH
    NEGOTIATOR HERE SEND CASE HEAR
    HOME TAKE.

    "It's not very clear what that means," Jamie ventured. "At least, not to me."
    "We've seen worse," Kelly said placidly, and pointed to a framed document, hung on the wall. It was a message form, identical in format to one he held in his hand. The date on the message was five years old. The message itself read:

    BSI KNOW OUI NEAT HILFE HIER
    KALM NAO

    "We never quite worked out