Asgard's Secret (13 page)

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.

9

When the appointed hour came, I was let out
of my cell and taken to the Hall of Justice by 69-Aquila. 238-Zenatta was
waiting for me there, with Jacinthe Siani and the fatal document. There was
also a Tetron clerk to whom I wasn't formally introduced, because she was female—the
Tetrax have strict but labyrinthine rules to regulate communication between
the sexes. She and Aquila were there to witness that I was signing the contract
of my own free will.

I insisted on
having it read aloud, as was my right. The clerk didn't seem at all put out; I got
the impression that she welcomed the opportunity to show off her perfect
parole.

I didn't bother to
listen—I just watched the miniunits ticking away on the wallclock's digital
display.

A Tetron day is
about twenty-eight Earth-standard hours. It's divided up into a hundred units,
each of which is subdivided by a further hundred, so each miniunit is about ten
times as long as an Earthly second. It makes Tetron clocks seem to run very
slowly; waiting for the next tick can be an agonising business if you're in the
wrong frame of mind.

The clerk handed
the ballpoint pen to me, and pushed a fingerprint pad across the tabletop. I slowly
inked my thumb, and then I looked at it very carefully. I'd given up expecting
miracles; it was just that I had let the treacly quality of Tetron time get a
grip on my actions.

I was just about to make my thumbprint and
add my signature when the door to the Hall burst open. There was an appalling
clatter of booted feet on the vitreous floor. The floor was immune to all
damage, of course, but such was the racket that it was easy to imagine chips
and shards flying in every direction.

Seven humans in
neat black uniforms raced across the room as if they'd been entered for a
sixty-metre dash with a really unpleasant booby prize for the last one to
finish. I'd never actually seen one before, but I guessed immediately that the
uniforms belonged to the now-legendary Star Force. Six of the starship soldiers
were male, but the one in the lead was a blonde woman who gave the definite
impression that her wrathful stare ought to be turning all of us to stone.

"Russell!"
she howled, at the top of her strident voice.
"Don't sign that paper!"

I wasn't about to
quibble about the pronunciation of my name. I dropped the pen and wiped the ink
from my thumb, uncaring of the fact that my trousers were fresh out of the
wash.

The officer and her
cohort immediately slowed to a fast walk—or, to be strictly accurate, a
military march. An eighth figure stumbled through the door behind them, purple
in the face with the effort of trying to keep up. It was Aleksandr Sovorov.

Jacinthe Siani
looked around, as if searching for moral support, but none was available to
her. She'd come alone to do a simple job—but it wouldn't have mattered if she'd
had half a dozen of Amara Guur's hatchet-men with her. They could hardly have
started a fight in the Hall of Justice—and if they had, they'd have lost. The
blonde and her six bravos were wearing sidearms of a kind I'd never seen
before, and they certainly looked as if they knew how to use them. They were
warriors—and near-genocidal warriors at that.

"The deadline
has expired!" Jacinthe Siani said, appealing to the clerk. "He agreed
to sign. He cannot back out now!"

The blonde arrived
at the foot of the platform as the Kythnan completed the plea, and vaulted up
to join us. She looked hard at Jacinthe Siani, curling her lip in a manner
calculated to radiate contempt; then she turned to the clerk. "I'm
Star-Captain Susarma Lear, representing the United Governments and Military
Forces of Earth," she said. "I demand that you release this man into
my custody immediately. I hereby accept responsibility for any debts he may
have incurred."

"You
cannot!" Jacinthe Siani complained—but she didn't sound confident.

I looked at
Aleksandr Sovorov, with a heart full of sincere affection. He'd brought the
cavalry!

He had actually
brought the cavalry to my rescue—or the Star Force, who were surely an order of
magnitude better, considering what they had instead of horses and six-guns.

It didn't seem to
be an appropriate time for legal niceties, so I grabbed the contract from the
table, ripped it in half and threw it at the Kythnan's feet. "I changed my
mind before the deadline expired," I said. "I accept the
star-captain's offer, gladly. I can do that, can't I, Zenatta?"

238-Zenatta frowned
at the omission of his number, but he was still my lawyer. "Most
certainly," he said. "In view of the fact that Ms. Siani's contract
only covers a fraction of my client's debt, while the star-captain is willing
to accept responsibility for the whole, I submit that the administration-in-residence
of Skychain City must prefer her offer, provided that the period of discharge
is not excessive."

"This is not
right!" Jacinthe Siani complained—but no one was listening.

"What period
did you have in mind for the repayment of

Mr. Rousseau's debt, Star-Captain
Lear?" the clerk inquired.

"I'll have to
talk to the ship's quartermaster," the star- captain told her, "but
how does a couple of hours sound? We have negotiable cargo. Your people on the
satellite have already expressed a strong interest in it."

A couple of hours
obviously sounded good to the clerk, but I noticed 69-Aquila frowning. When the
Tetrax frown, they don't do it by halves. I thought for one crazy second that
Amara Guur might have bought him too, but then I realised that it was the thought
of Star-Captain Lear's "negotiable cargo" that was troubling him.