Asgard's Conquerors Read online

  "Know what I think it is?" he asked.

  "Probably," I told him. "I've heard just about every theory there is. Hot favourite, by a wide margin, is that it's an interstellar Noah's Ark fleeing from some cosmic disaster which took place unimaginable aeons ago in the black galaxy."

  I could tell by his face that I'd guessed it in one. Desperately, he cast around for some other notion, so that he could pretend I was wrong.

  "It could be a zoo," he said. "Or it could be that they're refugees from our own galaxy, from the time before any of the present-day humanoids went into space. They say it couldn't possibly be coincidence that all the civilizations in the galactic arm should be approximately the same age, and all the humanoid races look so very similar. The guys on Goodfellow think we all have common ancestors—that all our worlds may have been terraformed in the distant past by some kind of parent species."

  "I've heard people argue along those lines," I admitted.

  "So what do you think, genius?" he demanded, with a hint of a sneer in his voice.

  "I don't know," I told him, truthfully. "But I do think we might find the answers to more questions than we ever dared to ask if anyone does get to the centre of Asgard. I saw enough down there to convince me that there are people in the deeper layers who make the Tetrax look primitive. The Tetrax suspect it too. They worry about it—they really like being the neighbourhood superstars. They love to call the rest of us barbarians, and I don't imagine they'd like to be shoved into that category themselves. They're very keen to find out what Asgard really is, but I'm not so sure they'll like the answers."

  "Like the rest of us to do their spade-work for them, don't they? God, I hated working for them—though I have to admit that they taught me a thing or two about security systems. If it hadn't been for the damned war I'd really have been in a position to make it big back here. Learned some neat tricks on Asgard. They may be monkey-faced bastards, but they're prepared to share what they know when it suits them. Or did they only open up Asgard to the rest of us so saps like you and me could take their risks for them?"

  "That's only part of it," I told him. "If they'd been able to keep Asgard a secret, they probably would have. But they weren't the only ones who knew about it when they began building the first base there. It serves their interests better to encourage multi-species research, and to do their own spade-work behind the scenes. They are genuinely committed to the idea of a peaceful and harmonious galactic community. They think it's the only way to ensure that any of us are going to survive. Those biotechnics they sold the Salamandrans—I don't believe that was just profiteering; it was also an attempt to change the way the war was being fought, to quiet it down. They're afraid of firepower, because of the way whole planets can get smashed up. Genetic time-bombs and subtle biotechnics are much more their style, because weapons like that don't cause ecocatastrophes."

  My heart wasn't really in the conversation. I'd spent too much time on Asgard concocting fanciful stories about the possible story behind the artefact, and puzzling over the other mysteries of the galactic status quo. I'd discussed such matters with cleverer men than John Finn, and I wasn't in the mood to go over old ground for the sake of what I still believed—despite all his claims of expertise—to be a crude and unfurnished mind. I reckoned that if he wanted to be educated, he ought to use his telescreen.

  I wondered whether there would be any telescreens where we were going.

  If we were going anywhere at all.

  "Tell me about these bacteria and viruses orbiting Uranus," I said, deciding that if we were going to talk, we might as well talk about something that intrigued me. "Surely it can't be more than thirty K out there."

  "About that," he confirmed. "Gets up to one-twenty K in the outer atmosphere."

  "Nothing can live at that sort of temperature!"

  "Nope," he said laconically. "Bugs are deep frozen. Just like being in a freezer, though—when we thaw 'em out,

  they're as good as new. Some of them, anyhow."

  "How long have they been frozen? Where the hell are they supposed to have come from?"

  "That's what these boys are trying to find out. Asgard's not the only mystery in the universe, you know. You didn't have to go chasing off to the galactic rim to find something strange. There are great enigmas even on your own doorstep. We've had Tetrax out here, you know. Was a Tetron bioscientist on Goodfellow a couple of years ago, while the war was still hot. Went on out to the halo afterwards."

  "Don't tell me the dust in the cometary halo is also full of bugs," I said, sarcastically.

  "Not exactly full," he said. "No more'n a few. Now here, so they say, we've got more biomass than the Earth. Crazy, huh?"

  I shook my head in bewilderment. The idea that Uranus had life more abundant than Earth, all of it deep-frozen, was a little difficult to take in. "But where were these bugs before they got deep-frozen?" I asked, again.

  I could tell Finn was enjoying this. "Right here," he said, with an air of great condescension. "At least, that's the fashionable idea."

  I couldn't work it out. I just stared at him, and waited.

  "Wasn't always this cold around here," he said. "Only since the sun stabilized. A few billion years ago, when the solar system was still forming, the sun was super-hot. Was a balmy three hundred K in these parts. Hot and wet, plenty of carbon and nitrogen. Not exactly fit for people, but okay for bugs."

  "Jesus!" I said, impressed in spite of the fact that it gave Finn such satisfaction to see it. "There was life out here before the Earth cooled down? DNA and everything?"

  "Sure," he said, cockily. "Where'd you think life on Earth came from?"

  When I was small, somebody had spun me a yarn about the molecules of life evolving in hot organic soup. They'd implied that the soup was slopping around in the oceans of primeval Earth. Obviously, the story had been updated in the light of more recent news. It didn't take much imagination to push the story back still further. How had the parent bacteria got into the hot organic soup floating around the early Uranus?

  From elsewhere, presumably.

  It shouldn't have been a surprise. As Finn had been reminding me only a few minutes earlier, the fact that all the galactic humanoids have an effectively identical biochemistry does strongly suggest a common point of origin. I'd already known—without quite being fully conscious of it— that the story had to go back billions of years. Asgard, apparently, had been deep-frozen for a long time. While studying the ecology that had run wild in one of the lower levels, I'd hazarded the guess that Asgard must be several millions of years old. Now, that guess didn't seem so very wild. Perhaps, if I worked hard enough, I could make up a story which would let Asgard be billions of years old. Was it possible, I wondered, that all the DNA in the galactic arm had originally come from Asgard?

  I thought about it. After all, I had nothing better to do.

  All through the four hours, I expected some nasty little surprise package to pop up from somewhere. I thought that the heroes of the Star Force were bound to spring out from some unexpected hiding-place, flame-pistols blazing. After all, Ayub Khan might care far more about the possibility of losing the produce of years of careful research than about the possibility of two Star Force deserters getting away, but the likes of Trooper Blackledge could hardly be expected to give a tuppenny damn about Uranian bugs. And what I knew about the Star Force suggested that they wouldn't worry too much about the priorities of intellectual microworlders.

  But nothing happened.

  I should have realised that that was the most suspicious thing of all, but somehow I just couldn't put it together.

  Anybody can be stupid, once in a while. I was having a bad week.

  When the four hours were finally up the phone warbled again, and we were told that a ship would be docking momentarily. Finn issued his instructions with all the imperiousness of a man whose right to command is secure. He specified that the men from the cargo-ship should come out of the umbilical one by one, una
rmed and unsuited. He told Ayub Khan that he'd have his hands on the precious tanks, ready to let the beasties out at the least sign of anything wrong. We watched the instrument-panels in the docking- bay, following the progress of the ship's approach and the connection of the umbilical. Everything looked absolutely fine.

  Finn and I waited patiently, mud guns at the ready. Finn was so confident by now that he still had his helmet unsealed, so that he could talk. Obviously, he thought he'd have time to zip it up with one hand while he was letting the bugs out of the tank with the other. I had my suit on by now, but I left my helmet unsealed too. I wasn't feeling terribly happy, but I saw no immediate cause for alarm.

  Finn told me to take up a position beside the hatchway, so I'd be behind whoever came through. I didn't like his giving me orders, but I followed his instructions anyhow. It did seem like the sensible place to be.

  We didn't know exactly who was going to appear at the hatchway, becausc we didn't know who'd been given the job of piloting the shuttle with my ship in its cargo-hold. We were half-expecting a Star Force uniform, though, so I wasn't unduly surprised by the fact that when the lock swung open, the person who stepped through was wearing a trim black suit with fancy braid.

  What did surprise me was the fact that it was a woman. She had an amazing halo of silvery-blonde hair, and though her back was to me, so I couldn't see her face, an awful suspicion began to dawn even before she spoke.

  She wasn't carrying a gun. In fact, she had her hands on her hips: a posture suggesting total carelessness. I could easily imagine the look of utter contempt that must be on her face as she stared at John Finn.

  "Put the gun down," she said, "and stand away from that tank. Open that valve, and I'll personally see to it that every moment of the rest of your life is utterly miserable. The same goes for you, Rousseau, if you're stupid enough to hit me from behind."

  It dawned on me that the ship whose docking we'd so calmly followed on the instruments wasn't the shuttle at all. It was the Leopard Shark. Ayub Khan had simply asked us to wait around until the reinforcements arrived.

  And we had.

  "Small universe, isn't it?" I remarked, with a depressingly feeble attempt at wit. "Mr. Finn, I'd like you to meet Star-Captain Susarma Lear."

  "Bastard!" said Finn. I charitably assumed that he was referring to Ayub Khan. I saw him reach out to open the valve, to flood the docking bay with vile Uranian bugs. He didn't even bother to seal his helmet.

  There was only one thing I could do.

  I shot him in the face. He must have got a mouthful of the stuff, because he folded up with hardly a moment's delay. The tank remained inviolate. As he collapsed, the expression of shocked surprise on his face turned gradually to a look of venomous hatred. There was no mistaking the fact that it was aimed at me.

  Susarma Lear turned round and relieved me of the gun.

  "That's what I like about you, Rousseau," she said. "When the chips are down, you always come through."

  6

  I followed Susarma Lear down the spur to the corridor "below," where three members of the local garrison, headed by Lieutenant Kramin, were waiting. I was relieved to observe that Blackledge wasn't with them. Kramin saluted with enthusiasm. He looked obscenely self-satisfied, and he was wearing a very broad smile.

  The smile didn't last long.

  Susarma Lear looked me up and down, then gave the lieutenant one of her best gorgon stares.

  "Who hit this man?" she demanded.

  Kramin looked startled. "One of my men got a little carried away, sir, while we were making the arrest."

  "You were told to apprehend him," she said, silkily. "You were specifically told that he was not to be harmed."

  That was news to me. I was puzzled, but glad to hear it.

  She turned her Medusan expression upon me, then. "Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Rousseau?"

  "I was trying to escape," I told her, meeting her gaze as steadily as I could. "We'd have got away with it, too, if some bastard hadn't stolen my starship."

  "Lieutenant Kramin," she said, in that same ominously smooth tone. "What happened to Rousseau's spaceship?"

  "We put grabs on it and hauled it into the belly of a scavenger," said Kramin, not quite certain whether it was safe to be proud of his initiative. "It's on its way to Oberon. Major Kar Ping wanted to . . . investigate it."

  "Are you aware, Lieutenant Kramin, of the regulations

  concerning looting?" she said.

  "Looting! This man's a Star Force. ..." He bit off the rest of the sentence, remembering to whom he was talking. He began again: "Major Kar Ping . . ." He put just a slight stress on the word "Major," and this time he deliberately let the rest of the sentence hang.

  When in doubt, pass the buck. Quickly.

  Susarma Lear pulled some kind of printout flimsy from her pants pocket, and handed it to Kramin. "Your orders, lieutenant," she said. "But first—there's a man floating around in the docking bay. We don't want him bumping into anything, do we?" She jerked a thumb in the direction of the hatchway through which we'd come. Then she reached out to put her hand on my shoulder, and said: "I'll take care of Trooper Rousseau."

  I expected to be taken back to my makeshift cell, but this turned out to be undue pessimism on my part. Instead, we were shown by one of Kramin's men to a guest cabin. It wasn't so very different from the one where I'd been imprisoned, but it was bigger, with a side-door that connected to a sitting-room. On a microworld, this was what passed for the height of luxury. Star-Captain Lear was clearly an honoured guest. She looked around, then told the trooper to get the spare room ready.

  "We're having a little dinner party," she told me. "I suppose it's nearer breakfast time, for you, but the microworlders will be pleased to fall in with ship's time. They haven't had this much fun in years. Ayub Khan will be along, and a diplomat named Valdavia. Also a Tetron bioscientist named 673-Nisreen. You do know enough about protocol to handle yourself, don't you?"

  By now, I was beginning to realise that things were not quite as they had seemed. Deserters are not often

  invited to dine at the high table.

  "What the hell is going on?" I asked her. "You pull a filthy trick like listing me as a deserter, but now I'm on your guest list. You put the entire outer system on alert to have me arrested, and now you're treating me like a long-lost friend—why?"

  "Technically," she said, with affected weariness, "you are a deserter." As she spoke she went back into the cabin and sat down on the bunk. She didn't invite me to sit, so I didn't. "I had the power to sign you on, but I didn't have the authority to discharge you. Technically. Despite what you may think, though, the Star Force is reasonably protective of its honour, and if circumstances hadn't been what they are, the discharge would have been allowed to stand.

  "I really am sorry about the alert—it wasn't my idea. If it had been up to me, I'd have waited for your ship to turn up, and asked you nicely for your co-operation. But my superiors weren't convinced that you were the volunteering kind, and in the last few years they've got out of the habit of asking nicely. They just decide what they want done, and then hand down orders. You were needed, so they decided to fish you out of the pond quickly and unceremoniously, using the first excuse that came to mind. By 'they' I mean Star Force Command—and the politicians on Earth. You've become an important man, Rousseau."

  She pulled out another batch of flimsies from her pants, and smoothed them out on the bunk. She put aside a sheet for herself, and gave three to me.

  "The top one drops all outstanding charges against you," she said. "It restores your clean record with the Force. The second one confirms your re-conscription and your assignment to special duties. The third one is your commission."

  I shuffled aside the first two to reach the most interesting one. I read it through quickly, and then again, more slowly. I couldn't believe what it seemed to be telling me.

  "Is this a joke?" I asked. It was a stupid question. She wasn
't given to joking. She shook her head.

  "If I'm reading this right," I said, "I'm a Star-Captain."

  "As of this moment," she confirmed. "That's the fastest rise through the ranks any member of the Star Force ever had. Faster than any battlefield commission. When I drafted you before, you were just some slob in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, you're an expert, and the Star Force intends to look after you—after its fashion."

  There'd be time to ask what kind of an expert I was at a later time. For the moment, there were more appealing aspects of the situation.

  "It means," I said, with a little grin, "that you don't outrank me."

  She shook her head again, and waved the flimsy that she'd kept. "As of now," she said, "I'm a lieutenant-colonel. I'm having our new uniforms sent out from the ship, so we can be properly dressed for dinner."

  I shook my head helplessly. "Why?" I demanded.

  "Mother Earth needs us," she said. "Very badly, it seems. I've been told that the political future of the human race may depend on us. Even allowing for military hyperbole, it signifies that our political masters are anxious for us to play ball. We aren't pawns any more, Star-Captain Rousseau—we've been promoted to pieces."

  I could tell that she wasn't trying to be infuriating. She didn't have John Finn's personality defects, though she had a fine collection of her own. I didn't want to stand there repeating the word "why?" like a parrot, so I just waited for her to get around to giving me the news. She obviously approved of my sense of discipline, because she got straight to the point.

  "A matter of days after you left Asgard," she told me, "Skychain City was invaded. The battle, such as it was, lasted a few days—the Tetrax peace officers weren't equipped to cope with a massive incursion of hostile troops. The skychain was smashed. The satellite was badly damaged, and it went into a decaying orbit. Everything that could fly picked up survivors, and a fleet of small ships crammed with people dispersed as quickly as possible. The Tetrax have asked for help—they want everyone who has experience down in the levels. Most of all, they want you. Mother Earth wants to make sure they get you. Relations with the Tetrax have been strained because of the war, and the UN men are paranoid about the reduction of our moral credit to zero within the galactic community. They probably see this as a key opportunity to get into the good books of the galactic big boys. There's even been talk of the UN hiring out the Star Force to retake Asgard's surface for them. Where else in the galaxy can they find experienced fighters kitted out with so much heavy metal?"