Asgard's Conquerors by Brian Stableford Page B

been underestimating him. It's easy
to underestimate politicians. The Tetron bioscientist, 673-Nisreen, interested
me far more, but he spent most of the time secluded in his cabin.
    Once Leopard Shark was wormholing we couldn't communicate with the
home system or with the Tetrax. A pick-up station had relayed us everything
that had come in by stress-pulse, just before we exited from normal space, but
it didn't tell us much more than we already knew. Until we reached the Asgard system
and talked to the Tetrax, we couldn't make specific plans. All we could do was
make sure that we'd be ready to carry them out. Naturally, it didn't stop us
having many a heartfelt discussion about what we might be asked to do, and what
our chances of surviving it might be.
    I wasn't overly optimistic about our chances of becoming successful
spies—although we had no official confirmation as yet that the Tetrax did
indeed want us to be spies. All those years I had spent poking around in levels
two and three, the evidence had suggested that the missing Asgardians were in
pretty much the same league as the galactic civilizations—it was their
technical style that was distinct, not its capability. What I had proved when I
went down the dropshaft into the heart of the macroworld was that those
appearances were misleading. Deep down inside, there were more advanced races,
with technical capabilities that made ours look very clumsy indeed. If those
races were now coming out of their shell, with hostile intent, the entire
galactic community might get swept aside like a house of cards. A handful of
human secret agents would hardly be able to achieve much in that kind of game.
I had thought, on the basis of what little I had learned about the super-
scientists, that they were a shy and peaceable crowd, but this invasion
suggested that I might have formed the wrong impression. When contemplating
the possibility that they had lied, I found it easy to scare myself with
theories about what might happen if they decided to go to war with the galaxy.
    I wasn't overconfident about the reliability of my memories of what had
happened in the depths of Asgard. After all, the person I'd had my enlightening
conversation with was the same person that Susarma Lear remembered having killed.
If her memory of what happened was an illusion calculated to reassure her, then
so might mine be.
    Needless to say, I didn't want to mention this to Susarma Lear, because
I didn't want to admit just yet that I knew—or thought I knew—that Myrlin was still
alive. I couldn't help wondering, though, if it might have been Myrlin who had
led the attack on Skychain City, maybe in command of a whole army of beings
like himself. It was just possible that he was being used in much the same way
I was—as a mercenary soldier.
    If he was, I sure as hell wasn't looking forward to taking up arms
against him. The Salamandrans had built him big and tough, and the godlike men
of Asgard probably had the ability to make him tougher still. The thought that
we might be sent down to the surface to keep tabs on an army of giant soldiers
armed by super-scientists was enough to make anyone's blood run cold.
    I didn't feel disloyal about neglecting to confide these fears to
Susarma Lear. I preferred to play my cards close to my chest, and keep my head
down.
    Some are born interesting, some make themselves interesting, and some
have interestingness thrust upon them. But you can fight it, if you try.

8
    I was keen to
have a discussion with the Tetron bioscientist, 673-Nisreen but this proved
difficult, partly because I was kept so busy, partly because the Tetron hardly
ever left his cabin, and partly because Valdavia seemed to want all communication
with the Tetron channeled through him.
    Eventually, though, I did manage to speak to Nisreen long enough to
arrange an assignation of sorts in his cabin. He seemed as pleased as I was to
have the meeting set up, and I gathered that he would have issued an