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Bureau Of Special Investigations Starside: The Cause Of Death by Roger McBride Allen
01/03/2007 . Source: Joules Taylor 
pub: Bantam Spectra. 470 page paperback. Price: $ 6.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 0-553-58726-9. Buy Bureau Of Special Investigations Starside: The Cause Of Death in the USA - or Buy Bureau Of Special Investigations Starside: The Cause Of Death in the UK  check out websites: www.bantamdell.com www.bantamdell.com and www.bsi-starside.com www.bsi-starside.com and www.rmallen.net www.rmallen.net
'They are the elite agents of interstellar investigation. Their mission: solve off-Earth crimes and protect humanity's starside interests. They are the men and women of the Bureau of Special Investigations - BSI - and their cases are literally out of this world.' (From the back cover blurb)
The problem is they don't have enough agents. 'The British Museum's Non-Human Cultures Index lists more sentient species than we have agents.' p. 28. Too many are dying on missions and those they do now have available are young and inexperienced. Hence Hannah Wolfson, an experienced BSI agent, is reluctantly partnered with Jamie Mendez, a new recruit, in a pilot scheme to see if such agent pairs can survive long enough to actually complete the mission.
A little necessary background...
The Elder Races have very strict rules when it comes to any species wanting to colonise a planet. The target planet must be primitive and not have very much in the way of native life. Sea-life is allowed, but no land-life. The colonising species is permitted to import its own life-forms to provide for its needs while it's on-world, but: 'The catch is that while there aren't exactly rules or laws saying your species can't colonise a planet forever, the universal experience and received wisdom is that even the longest-lived intelligent species isn't likely to remain on a colonized world for more than a few million years at most.' (p 63)
Before they leave, they are expected to clean up after themselves, biologically speaking, so that the planet can go back to evolving the way it would have if they had never arrived. The simplest way to do this is to genetically engineer every introduced species to contain some sort of weakness so that it can be killed off when it's time. Cruel, maybe, but hey, these are the Elder Races. The oldest of them, the Stannlar Consortia, contains a goodly number of living beings 'that were themselves older than the human race' (p 62). The perspective is somewhat different to a human's...
However, rather than relying on the colonising species to effect the destruction, the Elder Races rigged the DNA of the imported life-forms to have a kind of 'reset button' which had to be activated every ten thousand years or so to prevent said life-forms dying out.
A race called the Kreflar provided all the genetic tinkering for the planet Reqwar for the colonising Pavlat, who refused to become involved in genetic engineering themselves. Unfortunately, the Kreflar became extinct around the time the Neanderthals were superseded by Homo sapiens. Even more unfortunately, the Kreflar encrypted their genetic engineering and didn't leave any records of the password needed to reset the timers. Reqwar's biosystem is beginning to die.
Enter Georg Hertzmann. Along with his wife, Marta, their eight year-old daughter Moira, and two young beings of the Stannlar Consortia, Cinnabex and Allabex. Between them they have the job of decrypting the codes and resetting the timers before the planet dies.
So far so good, I hope. However, Georg Hartzmann and his wife are members of the Pax Humana, whose principle tenet is that they are willing to die in the course of their duty but not, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, will they kill.
The Pavlat, who look deceptively humanoid, have a complicated hierarchical culture that accepts and even expects murder as a way to advance. Actually, that's too blunt a way of expressing it, but it'll suffice here: it gets the gist across. The Thelm (equivalent to the king, if I've understood it correctly) and the High Thelek (who seems to be the next in line to the throne - possibly. Pavlat politics are complex at best) are at each other's throats, metaphorically speaking, since they wouldn't be so crude as to do so physically. In person, at least.
Then, for reasons that do become clear in the book, the Thelm adopts Georg as his son and heir to the throne, which only adds to the problems, as in order to inherit the Thelmship of Reqwar, Georg is duty bound to kill his adoptive father. The garbled message BSI receive seems to suggest he has done so, despite being Pax Humana and despite the urgency of his posting to Reqwar.
Hannah and Jamie are sent to Pavlat as negotiators, to try sort out the problem...
I'll make it clear from the outset, I loved this book. The author's wife is a member of the US Foreign Service and I assume acted as advisor on some of the elements in the story as the political, ambassadorial and cultural aspects of the work are beautifully detailed and realistic.
The science is feasible but not heavy-handed or intrusive (it's just a part of everyday life and dealt with as such), the alien species are believable and appealingly delineated - even the nasty ones. The plot is wonderfully convoluted and complex with a very nice twist at the end. The scope is vast, yet never overwhelming. It's a compelling, exciting read and I look forward to enjoying more in the series.
Heartily recommended to just about anyone who enjoys Science Fiction, but especially those with a fondness for murder mysteries, CSI and Agatha Christie!
Joules Taylor
http://www.wavewrights.com
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