Asgard's Conquerors (39 page)

The
walls on either side of us stayed black. There was not a flicker of a ghost.
The life that was within them was quite invisible, and was seemingly content to
remain in hiding. Confidently and without hesitation the two scions led us
through the maze. I could see that the man with pale blue eyes was becoming
just a trifle worried, as it dawned on him that he'd never be able to find his
way out unaided. Twice he lifted his radio to his lips, to contact the men outside,
making sure that he was still in touch. I still couldn't decide whether or not
Finn's story about the evacuated shaft and the explosives was anything more
than a desperately inspired piece of stupid bluff, but the officer was taking
it seriously enough to take pains about his presumed ability to send a signal
to tell his men to arm the bombs.

I
figured that the Nine could blank out his communications any time they wanted
to, so that if it came to the crunch the message couldn't be sent, but there
was still that edge of doubt. Nothing was happening, and I couldn't understand
why. Gods and aliens move in mysterious ways, so the proverbs assure us.

I sought
reassurance in telling myself, facetiously, that one would naturally expect the
Nine Muses to have an acute sense of dramatic tension and suspense. There are
times, though, when I don't find my own sense of humour very funny.

Finally,
we reached Thalia and Calliope's intended destination. A hole opened in the
wall, with a sufficiently magical flourish to make Sky-blue start with
surprise, and we were able to pass through into a cornerless chamber whose
ceiling was glowing with faint pearly light.

Thalia
and Calliope went on through, but the Scarid officer hung back, eyeing the
mysterious portal. In the end, he stepped through it, but he told the two
soldiers who were bringing up the rear to stay outside and stand guard. That
meant there were only three guns inside with us, but the odds were still far
too high for me to want to try anything. I didn't think the scions were the
types to be relied upon in that kind of fight. If Serne and Susarma Lear had
been along, it would have been a different matter.

There
were no sensory deprivation tanks here, but there were three "chairs"
hemmed in by all kinds of electronic hardware. They looked to me like the kind
of chairs that medics use to take electroencephalographic readings and conduct
SQUID brain-probes, or in full-scale biofeedback training. They had trailing
nests of tentacular wires, like the ones that had sent superfine threads
burrowing into my head while I was inside the egg.

I
guessed that these were sophisticated interfaces by which conscious humanoids
could hook themselves up to the Nine's main systems. They were probably the
means by which the scions communed most intimately with their parent software
personalities, and the means by which the Nine could enter into frank and full
discussions with Myrlin, 994-Tulyar, and any other volunteers.

Myrlin
and 994-Tulyar were already there, comfortably ensconced in the chairs. They
didn't move or open their eyes when we entered, and even when I touched Myrlin
on the arm he gave no sign at all that he knew I was there.

That was
the point at which I began to get very worried, having realised at last that
something was badly wrong, and that the silence of the Nine was not simply a
manifestation of their patience and curiosity.

Sky-blue
didn't like the set-up one little bit, to judge by the expression on his face.
I could see the expression quite clearly, because the room was well-lit by
comparison with the gloomy corridor. The walls were screen-like, but they were
solid grey. There was no console in front of the chairs to control their
operation. It was all inside the big hoods into which the would-be communicants
had to put their heads. The Scarid had never seen anything like it, but he too
was beginning to realise that Myrlin and Tulyar were too quiet for their own
good.

I stood
back as the blond-haired officer came to stand by Myrlin, reaching out to touch
him on the arm just as I had. I looked at Calliope, but her eyes were fixed
upon the face of her sister. They wore very similar expressions, and it was an
expression which spoke volumes, even upon an alien face. It was not a startled
look, but a look which told us all that something they had already begun to
fear was now self- evident in all its tragedy.

If I had
any lingering doubts, that look dispelled them. I had been coasting on all
kinds of false assumptions. Something bad had happened—not something trivial
and absurd, like the invasion of the habitat by the Scarid officer and his
gun-toting comedians, but something truly desperate.

Ignoring
Finn, I took Myrlin's burly wrist in my hand, and felt for a pulse. His body
wasn't cold, but I couldn't find any evidence of a heartbeat. When I lifted his
eyelid I could see only the white.

I went
to Tulyar. I didn't know what kind of crucial tests you can apply to figure out
whether or not a Tetron is dead, but he had no discernible pulse either. I
looked back at Myrlin, remembering that this was the guy who'd promised me only
a couple of hours before that I was as immortal as he was.

"What
happened?" I asked Thalia-7.

She
shook her head, to signify that she didn't know.

"What's
going on here?" demanded Sky-blue.

To him,
she said: "I think the Nine are not here."

He
couldn't begin to understand what those few words implied. The nature of the
Nine was way beyond the scope of his imagination. He still expected some
bad-tempered authority figure like Sigor Dyan to emerge from hiding and say
"What can I do for you boys?" The fact that Myrlin and Tulyar were
probably dead was something he could take in, but the fact that something had
zapped the Nine—and what that implied about the nature and power of the
something— was just so much noise to him.

I looked
around at the grey walls. Dead? I wondered. Can it really all be dead? Not just
a set of persons but an entire world?

"I
want to know what's going on!" said Sky-blue. I almost expected to see
him stamp his foot in petulant rage.

"Our
hosts are indisposed," I told him. "They were already injured by
something they made contact with—something at the Centre. I can't believe that
they tried again, so it must be the other way around. It must have come after
them! Maybe it came to destroy them. Maybe it was only doing what they tried to
do . . . trying to make contact. The Nine aren't here
but. ..."
I looked around those still, silent walls, expecting that any second they would
burst into furious life. ". . . Maybe somebody is," I finished, in a
rather hushed tone. "Maybe somebody is."

Sky-blue's
reaction was almost pitiful in its stupidity. He took three strides over to me
and pistol-whipped me across the face. I rode with the blow, but it still hurt
a lot. That right-hand side of my jaw seemed to be attracting so much violence
I wondered if it had some kind of target painted on it.

"If
you don't start talking sense," he said, "I'm going to get
rough."

Thalia
and Calliope looked shocked and pained by this outburst, and they moved even
closer together than they already were. They weren't being much help. I wasn't
entirely surprised. Solitude was threatening them now in a way it never had
before. The possible extinction of their parent personalities was probably the
most hideous thing imaginable, from their point of view.

I was
tempted to advise retreat—to tell the moronic barbarians that they were inside
the body of something alien and unknown, which might well mean them harm, and
that if they could even begin to understand what was happening they wouldn't
stop running until they were back home . . . and then some.

But that
would be silly. If the Nine's systems really had been taken over by an alien
persona of some kind, there was no way we could escape. If it had only been a
destructive blast, wiping out the life of the systems entirely, there was no
need.

I looked
at the third chair—the empty interface. There might well be one way to find
out. I looked again at the scions, and saw that they too were eyeing the chair,
with no great enthusiasm.

By now,
John Finn thought he had worked out what was going on. He took it upon himself
to explain to his friends what the score was.

"The
way I figure it," he said, "the computers were running the show. The
machines were the ones in charge here, and these furry freaks are the hired
help. The Tetron was making a deal when something crazy happened. Something
else got into the machines—something that could hurt them. It looks as if the
artificial intelligences have been ripped up, and these two got hurt in the
crossfire. Rousseau thinks it's still in there. God only knows whether or not
he's right. It might all be play-acting, but I don't think so. I think maybe
we'd better get out of here."

Sky-blue
looked at him frostily, and didn't budge an inch. Being only a soldier in his
kind of army was ninety- nine percent courage and only one percent brains. I
think he'd been accidentally short-changed on the intellectual side.

Unfortunately,
he was obviously having great difficulty figuring out an alternative course of
action.

"This
is all a trick!" he said, eventually.

It was a
nice idea. I wished I could believe it, but it was too much even for Finn, who
seemed to be an expert at believing whatever happened to be convenient at the
time.

The
Scarid pointed at the empty chair. "Is this a device for talking to these
machines?" he asked.

"Sure,"
I said. "Sit down, and they'll shout directly into your brain, without
bothering with your ears—if they can still talk at all. You could be in line
for a medal here. It might be posthumous, of course, but all the best-earned
medals are." I nodded at the ominously still figures of Myrlin and 994-Tulyar.

Unfortunately,
I must have expressed myself rather badly. He thought I was trying to be nasty.
It's always dangerous to try sarcasm on aliens—even aliens who look like
Neanderthal men. Either they don't understand it, or they take it in entirely
the wrong spirit. He still wanted to believe that it was all a trick, and he
didn't like the idea that I was treating him with undue contempt. At that moment,
I think, he was feeling just as badly disposed toward me as Finn.

"Very
well," he said. "You will please try it first."

Finn
actually laughed.

I spread
my arms wide. "Why don't you just shoot me?" I said. It was bravado
based on desperation. I wanted to be out of the limelight, back on the
sidelines where I belonged. But there was no one else handy to take over centre
stage. Myrlin was kaput and if Susarma Lear was still alive she was slumbering
in her sensory-deprivation tank, missing out on all the fun.

"If
you don't sit in that chair," said the man with the pale eyes, "I
will shoot you. You may be certain of that."

It was
plain that he had had enough of me. He didn't even think that I was useful any
more.

"Ah,
what the hell," I said, bitterly. "I thought I was dead anyway, last
time you bastards had me in your clutches. All this is so much borrowed
time."

I
certainly wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of shooting me, and I
didn't want to wait for John Finn to volunteer to help him. Myrlin and Tulyar
looked to be peaceful enough, and there was no sign that they'd died painfully.
I even began to reassure myself that I wasn't at all sure that they were dead.
If I was lucky, I would sit in the chair, activate the electronics, and nothing
would happen: nothing at all.

I did
glance briefly at Thalia and Calliope. Neither of them rushed forward to
volunteer to take my place, but they did look concerned for me. They were
hoping I'd be lucky, too.

I guess
there's luck and there's luck. Of course I didn't die—the "of course"
relating to your point of view rather than mine—but what happened was a very
long way from being nothing.

The
moment I sat down, before I could even begin to look for an activation-switch,
I was engaged. The machine didn't need my help to come alive: it was ready and
waiting. The neuron-worms began to burrow into the flesh of my scalp, searching
for the axon-threads by which they could link up to my central nervous system.
It was the first time I'd ever been conscious when such a thing happened, and
it set up waves of rebellious nausea in my stomach. The sensation of being
invaded like that is one of the most unpleasant I know, though it doesn't hurt
at all. It doesn't even tickle.

What
happens afterwards, of course, can hurt, maybe worse than any pain that could
ever reach you in the natural way, sparked off in your nerves by injury.