Asgard's Conquerors

3

Dr. Kimura’s intercession on my behalf brought results of a kind. She must have gone straight to the top, because my next visitor was one of the microworld’s top men. His name was Ayub Khan. He was tall and handsome, with a casual grace about his movements. I got the feeling that he’d have been a top man wherever he was, on a microworld or a whole planet.

“I’m very sorry,” he told me, with apparent sincerity, “that we must welcome you to the solar system in this manner. We appreciate that you have spent a long time in, as it were, solitary confinement, and it is most unfortunate that you should be subjected to more of the same on an involuntary basis. But our hands are tied. The Star Force claim jurisdiction in this matter, and their case is compelling.”

“I was drafted on Asgard after being wrongly convicted of a crime,” I told him, already knowing that it was hopeless. “My services were about to be sold, under a slave contract, to the people who framed me. Eventually, the truth came out, and under Tetron law, the contract I signed under duress became illegal. The Star Force complied with the Tetron directive, and I obtained legitimate discharge papers. I’m not a deserter; they have no right to arrest me.”

Khan shrugged.

“Tetron law does not apply here, Mr. Rousseau. The case must be tried according to UN law. I am certain that the court martial will take into account all the relevant information.”

“Do they shoot deserters nowadays?” I asked him.

“Very rarely,” he assured me. “In the majority of cases, returned deserters simply have to serve out their time in a penal battalion.”

“Great,” I said bitterly.

“Hostilities have ceased,” he pointed out, “but there’s still a great deal of work for the Star Force to do. An interstellar war leaves an unimaginable amount of mess. Our colonies will need rebuilding—and we have to take care of the surviving Salamandrans too. Even in a penal battalion, you’d be doing vital and valuable work.”

I couldn’t derive much consolation from these helpful observations.

“Mr. Rousseau,” he said, kindly, “we are entirely happy for you to consider yourself a guest of Goodfellow, in spite of your awkward circumstances. We will make no charge for your food or for the use you might make of our information networks. But the law binds us as it binds you, and we must work within the constraints of the situation.”

He reminded me very strongly of my last jailer, 69-Aquila, who had also been scrupulously polite.

“I’m grateful,” I said insincerely. “I would like to ask a couple of questions, if I may. I understand that the Star Force had been told that I was heading for the system, and a general instruction had apparently been issued to apprehend me. Is that right?”

“I believe so.”

“Do you know how they found out that I was coming? They couldn’t identify my ship until I relaxed the stresser, and I didn’t send any messages on ahead. Who told them to expect me?”

“I have no idea,” he replied, smoothly. “I infer that a message must have arrived from your point of departure while you were in transit.”

I’d inferred the same thing myself. A stress-pulse message would easily have beaten a ship in flight. But stress-pulse messages are expensive, and are used very sparingly. Susarma Lear couldn’t have sent it, because her ship had left Asgard long before mine. She must have reached the solar system months ago. She could certainly be responsible for labeling me a deserter, but there was no way she could have known that I was coming home. If the message telling the Star Force to expect me had come from Asgard, then it could only have come from the Tetrax. But how could the Tetrax have known that I was wanted? And why should they have cared?

It didn’t make sense.

“Dr. Khan,” I said, politely, “I’d be very grateful if you could use your influence to try to find out how the Star Force knew my ship was due. It could be vital to my defence.”

“I shall be pleased to do so,” he assured me. “Goodfellow is a civilized world, and I would not like you to think badly of us.”

I couldn’t really imagine that I’d be carrying any happy memories away, but I let the matter rest there. When Ayub Khan had gone, I sat down on the bed and tried to make myself feel better by counting a few blessings. At least, I told myself, I was still a rich man.

Then my other visitor arrived.

“Hello Rousseau,” he said, as he strolled in through the security-sealed door. “Small universe, isn’t it?”

I looked up at him in open astonishment. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, but I had not the slightest difficulty in recognising him.

“Jesus Christ!” I said. “John Finn!”

“Around here,” he told me, “I’m Jack Martin. I’d be obliged if you could remember that.”

John Finn was the black sheep of Mickey’s family. I’d known him slightly when we were all teenagers in the belt, but he and Mickey hadn’t been close. Whereas Mickey was big, shy, and awkward, John was small, sharp, and too clever by half. He’d come to Asgard once, having left the system for reasons he never fully explained. He’d had money—enough, at least, for a round-trip passenger ticket on a Tetron ship. But Mickey was dead by then. John didn’t seem too grief-stricken when he found out—just angry that Mickey had left the ship to me. Maybe if I’d thought Mickey would have wanted him to have it, I’d have given it to him, but I didn’t.

John had stayed on Asgard for six months or so. He had gone out into the levels a couple of times with a work-gang, but hard labour hadn’t been to his taste. He’d done a little work for the Tetrax on salvaged technics, but that hadn’t led to the kind of rewards he was looking for. He’d eventually headed back to the system. He hadn’t bothered to say goodbye. I hadn’t missed him.

“I’ll try to remember,” I promised, telling myself that at least he was a familiar face, and might even be friendly. “What are you doing here? And how did you get past the security lock on the door?”

“I came to visit,” he said, cockily. “And security locks are no problem. I’m the maintenance man around here.”

I shook my head in honest bewilderment. He sat down beside me on the bed, and crossed his legs. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Stayed in the outer system when I got back,” he said, nonchalantly. “Never did like the inner planets much. Belt boy, like you. Was on Titan for a while, and Ganymede. Signed on with Goodfellow to have a look at the local sats.

Nice people. I do hired-help-type jobs: maintenance work, shuttle pilot, drive the ground-vehicles, that sort of thing. It’s not much, but it fills in until I can get some real work. I tell tall tales about Asgard. They say you went to the Centre, met the makers.”

“Not quite,” I said. “I was a long way down. Had a brush with some people who could do very clever things with machines. Couldn’t say that we really got much of a conversation going. Still don’t know who built Asgard or why.” I matched his style of conversation effortlessly.

He sat down on the bed, and suggested a cup of coffee. I dialled up a couple of cups. It wasn’t as good as the stuff my Tetron organics produced, but that wasn’t surprising.

“You’re in trouble, Mike. They still call you Mike?”

“Yes, they do. And I am in trouble.”

“Star Force really wants to nail you. They don’t send out that kind of alert signal for just anybody. Entire system’s been eagerly awaiting your return. Don’t know what you did, but you sure ruffled somebody’s feathers.”

“Star-captain named Susarma Lear,” I told him. “Funny, really—I could have sworn that we were getting along quite well toward the end. She didn’t like me, but she seemed willing enough to let me be. I guess I underestimated her.”

“I’ve heard of her,” said Finn. “Got quite a reputation. Ran some bold raids in Salamandran territory. Tits loaded down with medals. I can help you, you know.”

I studied him carefully. He had the same pinched face. He was wearing a little moustache now, which made him look like a Parisian pimp out of some old movie. I didn’t like his manner, which had always suggested to me that he’d overdosed on assertiveness training in the sixth grade.

“You can?” I countered guardedly.

“Sure. Can get you out of here and away. Anywhere in the system you want to go—or out of it. If you stay in the system, it’ll have to be Earth. Nowhere else big enough to hide. Still three billion people down in the hole. Lots of places where they don’t have full registration. Your people were Canadian, weren’t they? That’s not so good. Australia may be a different matter. Biotech desalination plants, desert reclamation . . . population climbing, lots of work, not many questions. On the other hand, maybe you’d be better off out of the system entirely. For good. Still got friends on Asgard?”

“I guess so,” I answered, without much conviction. “I think I could bear to say goodbye to the system forever, if I had to. All things considered, if I were aboard my ship right now, I don’t think I’d wait to be court-martialled.” I stared him in the face all the while, still waiting for the punch line.

“Rumour has it that you got rich,” he said, delivering it.

“Where are these rumours coming from?” I asked him. “All of a sudden, I seem to be famous. Rumour says that I got deep into Asgard, met some funny people. Rumour says that I got rich. Who’s doing the talking, John?”

“Star Force,” he replied, laconically. “Some of their guys were with you down below, right? Makes a good story, especially with the star-captain featuring. She’s famous. You’re just notorious. But they do talk about you, Mike. Flattered?”

“Not exactly. I’d rather be inconspicuous.”

“I know the feeling. I can get you out of Goodfellow, you know. The benefits of knowing the maintenance man, if you see what I mean. Locks don’t matter.”

“And you were thinking of helping me out for old time’s sake, were you?” I asked, with the merest hint of sarcasm.

“No,” he replied, bluntly.

“What sort of price do you have in mind?”

“Well,” said Finn, “I don’t say it’s going to be easy. In fact, it could expose me to a bit of risk. I wouldn’t be able to stay here, would I? And the Star Force would be looking for me, too. What are you carrying in the way of exchange?”

I had part of my fortune in metals, part in organics, and part in Tetron drafts. Tetron paper money is the only kind you can trust. I told him, without being specific about amounts.

“I can’t use the Tetron scrip,” he said. “It’s registered to user, too easy to trace. But if we were together, we could split everything fifty-fifty, couldn’t we?”

I supposed we could. It was a lot of money to pay a maintenance man for fiddling a lock or two, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be partners with John Finn. I was sure, though, that I didn’t want to serve ten years in a penal battalion. But we hadn’t got to the bottom line yet.

“And I’ll want half of the ship,” he added.

“The ship!”

“Well,” he said, patiently, “it’s not really your ship, anyhow. It was Mickey’s. It always should have come to me. I’m just a little late in claiming it, that’s all. I’m only asking half. Half of everything. What other options do you have?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, sourly. “But I bet they’d be cheaper ones.”

“Sure,” he replied. “They aren’t charging you for the room, are they?”

I hadn’t heard an offer like it since Jacinthe Siani had volunteered to buy me out of jail on Asgard with Amara Guur’s money. If it came to a contest, I decided that I’d rather deal with John Finn than with Amara Guur—but it wasn’t the kind of choice a sane man would want to be faced with. I was in the frying pan again, and I was only being offered a fire to jump into.

“I don’t know yet what the Star Force intends to do with me,” I told him.

He laughed. “If you wait to find out, it will be too late to stop them. They only have a dozen men on Goodfellow, and they’re mostly ones they couldn’t trust to do a good job in the real line of action, but they have a couple of hundred combat soldiers on Leopard Shark. Once you’re in their hands, Superman and the Scarlet Pimpernel couldn’t get you out. This is your last chance, Mike. Take it or leave it.”

It didn’t seem to be much of a chance, but there didn’t seem to be any others.

“Okay,” I said, defeated. “You’re on. Spring me, and the ship’s half yours. Half the money, too. I presume that I can leave it to you to get the paperwork ready?”

“You certainly can,” he assured me. He sounded very pleased with himself. He had every right to be. When I thought what I’d had to go through to earn that money, the idea of cutting him in as a reward for opening a door seemed pretty sick. But if I wasn’t free, I couldn’t spend my money, could I?

“Get some sleep,” said Finn. “I just have to make a few preparations, and then we’re away. I wouldn’t do this for everyone, you know—but you’re nearly family.”

I tried to smile. I never had a brother, but if I had, I wouldn’t have wanted one like John Finn. It was bad enough to have him for a friend. Sometimes, though, friends are in such short supply that you have to take whatever you can get.

It can be an unfriendly universe, sometimes.