Asgard's Secret

8

When the Kythnan had gone, I kicked the glass wall in frustration, but all that achieved was to make my big toe ache.

“I hope you got all that,” I said to the empty air. “If she’s telling the truth, your expectation of getting down into the lower levels in your own time and on your own terms is under threat. I only hope you care enough to try to figure out what the hell is going on—and to do something about it before my time runs out.”

I was confident of the first part of that hope. The Tetrax had to care enough about what Saul Lyndrach might have found to worry about Amara Guur getting his hands on it— but I was all too well aware that it wasn’t at all the same thing as caring what might happen to me. If the Tetrax concluded that the sensible thing to do was to let Amara Guur do their spadework for them, they probably wouldn’t be in the least interested in subverting his plans—which meant that from my point of view, they might as easily be reckoned deadly enemies as potential allies.

I really did need a miracle.

I tried to call Saul Lyndrach, and wasn’t overly surprised when I failed.

Then I phoned 74-Scarion at Immigration Control and asked whether he had any information on Myrlin’s whereabouts. 74-Scarion admitted some slight concern, but assured me that the newcomer’s disappearance was a minor matter—a mere technicality, unworthy of serious investigation. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

Then I rang Aleksandr Sovorov, and said: “You’ve got to get me out of this, Alex. There’s no one else I can turn to.”

“I’m sorry, Rousseau,” he said, “but I don’t see the necessity.”

He didn’t know that he was quoting Voltaire, but that didn’t make me feel any less ignominious a beggar.

“I didn’t do it, Alex,” I told him.

“Actually,” he admitted, “I never thought you had. But if you couldn’t prove it to the court, I don’t see what I can do.”

“Come on, Alex. The C.R.E. must be interested in the fact that Amara Guur’s planning a looting expedition. He thinks he knows a way into the lower levels.”

“Rousseau,” he said, obviously forgetting the fact that I’d instructed him to call me mister as well as the fact that he’d earlier felt free to call me Michael, “everybody thinks he knows a way into the lower levels. Do you know how many people come to us with tales like Lyndrach’s?”

“No,” I said, feeling some slight relief at having made progress enough with the mystery to be certain that Saul had gone to the C.R.E. with whatever he’d found, “but I do know what happens when their applications get booted into touch by your stupid committees. Somebody believed him, Alex—or thought his claim was worth taking seriously enough to rat him out to the vormyran mafia.”

“We can’t investigate every silly rumour that comes our way,” he said. “The sillier they sound, the less inclined we are to take them seriously.”

“Exactly how silly did this one sound?” I asked.

“I can’t talk to you about C.R.E. business,” he told me. “You’re a convicted murderer calling from a prison cell, for heaven’s sake.”

“Just get me out, Alex. I’ll take any reasonable offer, to stay out of Amara Guur’s clutches.”

“I’d really like to help,” he assured me, “but my hands are tied.”

“And your fat arse is bolted to your well-upholstered chair,” I retorted. “There are two hundred humans on Asgard, Alex—some of them have got to be capable of caring about Saul, if not about me. If you can find him before my time’s up—or Myrlin the jolly giant—you might be able to get something going. If the Tetrax can’t find them, somebody must be hiding them, and that somebody is far more likely to be human than alien. You have to find them, and persuade them to tell the Tetrax what’s going on.”

“Do you think I’m some kind of miracle-worker?” he complained.

“Nothing less will do,” I assured him. “A miracle-worker is what I need.”

“Well, I’m not,” he informed me, unnecessarily. “I’ll ask around, but I’m warning you, Rousseau—if this business ends up harming my position in the C.R.E., I’m going to be extremely annoyed.”

“Well, if I don’t end up dead, I’ll just have to carry that on my conscience.”

“You’re not much of a diplomat, are you?” he came back, radiating wounded vanity. “Murderer or not, it’s people like you that get the human species a bad name. No wonder we get embroiled in stupid wars. We did win, by the way, insofar as either side can be said to have won. The Salamandrans came off far worse than we did, at any rate. It’ll take us centuries to live it down, of course, even though they started it—but at least it wasn’t our homeworld that was devastated. They’re going to need our help now, just to avoid extinction. Compared with the amount of blood the whole race has on its hands, your innocence of the death of a single Sleath is a minor matter.”

“Not to me,” I told him, through gritted teeth. I was being as diplomatic as I possibly could.

“We’re all complicit in near-genocide, Michael,” he told me, morosely. “None of us can avoid that stain. It’s a whole-species crime. You and I and our two hundred compatriots might be a very long way from Earth—farther, I suppose, than anyone else—and you and I, at least, might have set off from home before the war even began, but we’re still guilty. There’s no way around that.”

I hung up on him, figuring that either he would do what I’d asked him to do or he wouldn’t, and that either way, he was the least likely miracle-worker I’d ever met in my entire not-quite-guilt-free life.

There was no mad rush to buy me out that day. Nor was there any news of Saul Lyndrach or mysterious Myrlin. The hours of grace remaining to me ticked inexorably by, and the only manifest improvement in my situation was the slight amendment to Jacinthe Siani’s contract that 238-Zenatta negotiated on my behalf.

The changes were cosmetic, of course; I knew as well as the Kythnan did that my chances of collecting a share of Amara Guur’s profits were a good deal slimmer than a snowball’s in hell.

I seriously considered the alternative, but I couldn’t persuade myself of its merits. Amara Guur might be a murderous crook, but he wanted me conscious as well as alive and healthy, at least in the short term. While he still needed me, I had a chance to outwit him, and maybe even get my own back.

I knew I’d have to sign Jacinthe Siani’s contract in the end, but I was determined to drag it out as long as I could.