Asgard's Secret

13

Politeness required that I should switch on the eye above my own phone so that Amara Guur could see me too, but I didn’t bother. I felt that I could happily live out my life without ever letting him see my face.

“What do you want?” I asked harshly.

He smiled. Unusual for humanoids, the vormyr are a predatory species, irredeemably carnivorous. I’d been told that they had very bad breath, and it was easy enough to imagine that, even though I was only looking at a picture. Guur looked like a cross between a wolf and a crocodile, slightly favouring the reptilian side of the family. It wasn’t a harmonious combination. His smile was unattractive in the extreme.

“I’d like to discuss some matters of mutual interest, if you’re willing.”

“I’m not,” I told him.

He didn’t seem put out.

“I can understand that,” he said. “It has come to my attention that you feel that I am in some way responsible for your recent troubles. I can assure you that I am not, but I should like to make a gesture of good will in any case—a small gift, to assure you of my friendship. It cannot make up for your unfortunate experience, of course, but I think you might be very glad to receive it.” His accent wasn’t incomprehensible once I’d got used to it.

“I don’t want it,” I said.

“I think that you do,” he retorted. “In any case, it belongs to you by reason of both legal and moral entitlement—if, as I understand, you are the sole beneficiary of Saul Lyndrach’s will. Not that I had anything to do with his unfortunate demise, of course—I have offered the peace-officers my full co-operation in the matter of apprehending the homicidal giant.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded. I had to use the English word for “hell,” but he got my drift. He smiled again.

“It is a small item that… happened to come into my possession.” So saying, he lifted something up to his phone’s eye so that I could see it. It was a black-bound notebook. It had to be Saul’s log, containing his personal record of his last trip. It had to contain the location of the doorway down to level five—encrypted, I presumed. Obviously, Simeon Balidar hadn’t been able to decipher it, and Saul hadn’t been willing to divulge the key even under extreme pressure. Amara Guur obviously thought that I had a better chance of cracking the code—which explained why he thought we should talk, but not why he was apparently ready to make me a gift of the book, and to risk displaying it on a phone-channel that was almost certainly being monitored by the police. I presumed that he was lying, laying down bait for the next phase of the game.

“Put it in the post,” I said.

“We don’t have time,” he replied. “I can send it by courier, or you can come and collect it, as you please. To be perfectly honest, I would rather not run the risk of a courier being intercepted by… other interested parties. If you would care to name a public meeting-place, where two innocent citizens could meet without fear of interference, I shall be happy to bring it there myself. You are welcome to bring your military escort with their flame-pistols at the ready. If it will help you to reach a decision, your companions might care to know that it will assist them greatly in their pursuit of the multiple murderer Myrlin.”

Susarma Lear had overheard every word. She shouldered me out of the way, and said: “I’ll be in that square near the foot of the skychain in whatever the local equivalent of twenty Earth minutes is,” she said. “On the steps of the building where we found Rousseau this morning. Don’t keep me waiting too long.”

“I am delighted to know that Mr. Rousseau has such decisive friends,” the vormyran said. “I look forward to meeting you in person.”

He broke the contact.

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “He might still have time to set up a trap, even on the steps of the Hall of Justice. It’s nighttime out there, you know.”

“Don’t be paranoid,” she said. “Anyway, you don’t have to go. I’ll even leave Serne to look after you, if you want.” While she was speaking, she started kicking her men, although most of them had been woken up when I tripped over them on the way to the phone, and they’d all started paying attention when she’d walked over them to shoo me out of the way.

“It can’t be as straightforward as it seems,” I said. “If that book has directions to where Myrlin’s going, why would Guur hand it over to us?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I know the easiest way to find out. Are you ready to go?”

“You just said I didn’t have to!”

“Yes, I did—but that’s like accusing you of being a coward. You’re a trooper in the Star Force now, Rousseau— when someone suggests that you might be a coward, you’re supposed to show them that they’re wrong. That’s a little local knowledge for your edification. Now move.” Her men didn’t seem in the least perturbed by the fact that they’d only had the briefest of cat-naps. They were already moving.

“Do I get a flame-pistol?” I asked, bitterly.

“Not yet,” she said. “But if you come through this little expedition like a good Star Force man, I’ll think about it.”

We attracted a certain amount of attention as we made our way through the streets, even though it was the dead of night. The Tetrax set the clocks, but other species’ circadian rhythms weren’t always able to comply. There were enough people about to be seriously inconvenienced as we hurried along, considerably faster than the moderate pace at which the road-strips ran. Usually, people who ran on the moving strips, barging past other pedestrians, attracted a continual barrage of loud complaints, but there’s something about bulky sidearms that reduces all complaints to mute resentful stares. We attracted a good many of those.

As we went, the star-captain made further plans.

“Okay, Rousseau,” she said. “How many people can we get into this truck of Lyndrach’s?”

“It’s a small one—built to carry two, although it can take three,” I told her.

“Shit,” she said. “We’re going to need another.”

I was amazed. “Do you know how much a truck costs?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “but I’ll pay it. I’m not chasing the android with only you and Crucero as back-up. If you’ve read this situation right, he killed seven men with his bare hands and whatever blunt instruments he was able to pick up. It’s okay—my quartermaster’s already dickering with the Tetrax. We’ll all need suits, too. You’d better start making up a list of equipment.”

“You’ve never been out in the cold,” I said. “You have no idea what it’s like. It’s dangerous out there, especially for novices.”

“Do you think it isn’t dangerous wearing all the kinds of suits we’ve had to wear these last ten years?” she said, contemptuously. “Do you think it wasn’t dangerous going down to the surface of Salamandra after the bombardment? Believe me, Rousseau—you don’t know what real scavenging is. Make the list, and get it right. Let me worry about the cost and the hazards.”

I made the list. I started while we were still on the strip, and I managed to complete it within five minutes of arriving at the plaza. The star-captain gave it to Crucero and told him to take care of it, as soon as possible. She sent all but two of her troopers to help him. The two that remained were Serne and an Oriental named Khalekhan. I thought she might be going out of her way to prove that she wasn’t afraid of any trap that the likes of Amara Guur could spring, but I had to admit that they both looked as if they meant business once they had their flame-pistols drawn. In theory, that was illegal, but there wasn’t a peace-officer in sight, even though we were in full view of the central police station and the night shift was on duty. The Tetrax seemed perfectly content to let us do whatever it was the star-captain felt she had to do. I didn’t doubt that they were looking on, from a discreet distance, and that Amara Guur would know that too, but I was still anxious.

There were no vormyr in the plaza either. There was nothing to do but wait. The plaza was the largest open space in the city, directly under the pole of the dome. The Skychain shot up like an infinite glittering arrow from the base-station a couple of hundred metres away; it was an impressive sight, even in the muted light, but the star-captain didn’t bother gawking at it. She was looking from side to side, scanning the passers-by on the roadstrip.

When we’d been there about ten minutes, a Campanulan lost his balance transferring from the faster strip to the slower one and fell with his legs on one and his torso on the other. He brought down half a dozen people of assorted races who were standing on the slower strip while the faster one dragged him along—if it had been mid-morning, he’d have skittled a hundred or more. Somebody must have dropped something into the crack between the strips, because the roller gears suddenly started making an awful noise. The safety-relays immediately stopped both strips.

“Does that happen often?” the star-captain asked.

“Not at night,” I told her. “Twice or three times a day, when the lights are on. It’s okay. The repair crew will come out even at this hour. If they don’t fix it in time, we’ll only have to walk to the next intersection to get a ride home.”

She had tensed up when the accident happened; her eyes were darting back and forth, as if she expected soldiers with blazing guns to emerge from the shadows at any moment, although the pedestrians had meekly accepted the necessity of using their own muscle-power and were proceeding about their business in good order. I hoped that she hadn’t actually released the safety-catch on her weapon.

“That’s the repair crew coming now,” I told her, pointing to the approaching team. “Those aren’t weapons they’re carrying. Take it easy, will you? It doesn’t look as if anyone’s trapped an arm or a leg, so it’ll just be a matter of minutes.”

I could see that she was trying to relax, but she wasn’t finding it easy.

I heard a faint hiss coming from the top of the stairs and turned round. The doors of the Hall of Justice had been closed when we arrived, but one stood ajar now, and there was a face peering around it. I thought at first that it was a human face, but then I realised that it was a Kythnan.

Amara Guur had lied. He hadn’t come in person—he’d sent Jacinthe Siani instead. I wasn’t in the least disappointed.