Asgard's Conquerors (10 page)

"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, unarmed 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."