Asgard's Secret

by Brian Stableford

  They realised it soon enough thereafter. The Salamandrans had killed a lot of humans in the early phases of the war, before Earth's high command had figured out exactly what kind of defences they needed, but they never got to Earth itself. Once the human defences were properly mobilised, the backlash began—and the Salamandrans understood soon enough that they were in deep shit.

  They tried to fight a holding action, while they tried to formulate a Plan B. Biotech-minded species like the Tetrax always tend to take the long view, so they began making contingency plans for the way they'd have to fight in a second war, a couple of hundred years down the line, to recover everything they'd lost in the first—even if that "everything" turned out to include their homeworld and everything else they held . . . and even if that "everything" brought them to the brink of extinction.

  As I said, the big problem with biotech weaponry is delivery. Insulation against airborne agents is too easy. Delivery of a biotech weapon requires personal contact. The Salamandrans had the lessons of their own troubled history to draw on, and what those lessons had taught them was that the success of biological warfare depended on the efficiency of its carriers. So they set out to design carriers who could take their weapons to the human race: androids, designed not merely to look like humans but to be humans, in every sense that mattered except one; androids who would believe, as sincerely as any other human, that they were human, and wouldn't even know about that one subtle difference.

  Unfortunately, androids suffer from the same problems as any other kind of biological weaponry: their own delivery takes a long time. All the biotech-minded humanoid races have the technics to make androids, but few of them bother, because growing and educating an android requires just as much trouble as growing and educating a person by natural means. If you need slaves, the economical way to provide them is the Tetron way—but the Salamandrans had other priorities. The Salamandrans had—or thought they had—a strong incentive for grappling with the problems of accelerated growth and accelerated education, so that they could bring their human-seeming androids to full maturity in less than half the time it took a natural human.

  They'd experimented before, of course, but only in the manufacture of pseudo-Salamandrans. For humans they needed moderately different technics and a whole new DNA-recipe. It's not surprising that the trial runs threw up some unexpected glitches. They would probably have sorted them out if they'd had time.

  They didn't have time. Their holding-action wasn't good enough. The war ended before they'd got any kind of production-line set up. All they had was the final set of prototypes.

  They were pretty good prototypes, except for one small detail: the accelerated growth had built up a little too much momentum. They were too big—not beyond the natural range of human variation, but close to its upper limit. They would be too easily identifiable, maybe not in the first instance, but soon enough. One near-giant might not seem suspicious, but a whole set would be certain to attract attention and invite careful investigation.

  The problems of delivering biological weapons don't stop with finding carriers, of course. As soon as a tailored plague manifests itself, defences can be mobilised against it. Cases can be quarantined; vaccines can be sought. Those plagues spread furthest that have the longest incubation period—but incubation periods sufficient to allow an agent to be carried undetected to every corner of a Gaia-clone world, let alone a fledgling interstellar empire, require the users of the weaponry to take a very long view indeed.

  Even humans had worked out, while fighting their own petty plague wars, that the most effective biological weapons—in the long term—were those which debilitated without killing, so that every sufferer would be a burden as well as an infective agent. They'd figured out, too, that it mustn't show itself too soon, and mustn't be too easily identifiable as an enemy agent when it did. The basic theory required a two-step process: infect first, trigger later.

  The Salamandrans knew all that too. They had built an infective agent into Myrlin and his kin, but it was a subtle one; it wouldn't run riot for a long time, and when it did, it would cause a long, slow social meltdown rather than a modern Black Death.

  It was a good plan, in its way, but it had one all-important proviso attached to it. It was a good plan, so long as nobody knew about it. Once someone did, it could be short- circuited. The defenders didn't even have to devise a defence against the primary agent, if that proved too difficult; they only had to devise a defence against the trigger.

  As things turned out, the Salamandran homeworld fell too soon, too abruptly, and far too messily. They lost, or sacrificed, most of their prototype androids, but they didn't manage to obliterate every last trace of the program. They provided Myrlin with a believable cover-story—representing him, of course, as a prisoner of war—but it wasn't quite good enough. It passed the first inspection, but it fell apart on closer examination.

  When Myrlin was initially picked up, he was treated as a liberated captive, in spite of his unusual size, but he never got off the surface of Salamandra—not, at least, until he had to make his escape, because he'd been spotted for what he was.

  Nobody knew the details of the plan, but the invaders had eventually figured out that there had been a plan, and that he was part of it. Nobody knew exactly what it was that he was carrying, or how it was ultimately to be triggered, or when—but nobody was overly interested in niceties like that. They just wanted him dead. After all, from the Star Force viewpoint, he was only an alien android: a bioweapon.

  From his own point of view, of course, things seemed very different. He had been grown in a tank and his developing brain had been fed by unorthodox methods, discreetly filled with synthetic memories and stocks of knowledge, but he thought of himself as fully and authentically human. He didn't want to be a weapon of war. He didn't intend to be a weapon of war. His only ambition was to be disarmed, if any disarmament were necessary.

  He didn't think it was. He didn't think that the first phase of the operation had been completed, let alone the second stage of the programme. He thought that he had never even been primed to be infectious, and that even if he had, he was a weapon without a trigger, a bomb without a detonator—but it was in his interests not merely to think all those things but to believe them with all the passion and certainty of which a synthetic human mind was able.

  Even if he had been primed, he explained, he wasn't a problem that needed to be solved the Star Force Way. He could be disarmed. He could be quarantined. In fact, he had only escaped from custody in order to get himself disarmed, and quarantined. He had come to Asgard because the Tetrax were the cleverest biotechnicians in the humanoid community—and because there were so few humans here.

  "You were never in any danger, Mr. Rousseau," he assured me. "Even if you'd taken me in, you'd have been in no danger. Saul Lyndrach was in no danger from me— although he was, alas, from others."

  Well, I thought, when he told me that, you would say that, wouldn't you?

  What I said aloud was: "It's personal, isn't it? You and the star-captain. She was the one who liberated you. She was the one who mistook you for a Salamandran prisoner of war. It was a natural mistake, but she thinks she screwed up. She's trying to make amends—to finish the mopping up. She thinks you might have infected her—her and all her men."

  "No!" he said. "They never took off their battle-suits. They didn't dare. No one who came down to the surface of Salamandra and into the bunkers was licensed to breathe the air or touch the surfaces. I haven't infected anyone. But you're right—it is personal, for her. She was the one who liberated me."

  "Saul wasn't wearing a battle-suit," I pointed out. "Saul, whose dead body you left in my bed. I wasn't wearing a battle-suit when I found him. Nor was Susarma Lear."

  "I haven't infected anyone," he insisted. "I hadn't been primed. Even if I had, the infection would be harmless. There isn't a trigger. Even if there was, it wouldn't be timed to go off for a long time. I'm not dangerous, Mr. Rousseau."r />
  I didn't doubt that he believed it, or that his belief was absolutely unshakable. But that didn't mean that it was true. On the other hand, it did make sense. Even the worst situation imaginable wasn't that bad. There was plenty of time to take precautions, if any turned out to be necessary. There was no reason for the Star Force to be so intent on hunting him down and killing him—except that that was the Star Force Way, and that Star-Captain Susarma Lear had made a mistake she was extremely keen to repair.

  "Some day," I said, "I might want to go back to the home system. If the people there think I've been infected

  with some alien bioweapon ..."

  "You haven't."

  "Even so, they'll want to be certain that I haven't. Okay, so I'm not a secret army of hundreds or thousands—I'm no real danger, in practical terms. Even so, they will want to be certain. They'll want to be certain about all of us—Susarma Lear, Serne, Vasari . . . everyone who's ever been on Asgard."

  "They can be. They will be. They know about the programme now. It's just a matter of investigation and analysis. They can remove that last nagging doubt, if they're prepared to try. Even without Tetron help, it's just a matter of making an effort. They'd check you over anyway, coming in from a place like Skychain City . . . even if you hadn't been down here."

  He was right, of course. They would. There really wasn't any more danger from whatever he might be carrying than there might be from any alien bug I might have picked up purely by chance, playing cards with a Zabaran, or making an everyday journey on a road-strip. You'd have to be paranoid to think otherwise—as paranoid as Star-Captain Lear and her commanding officers.

  "The surviving details of the programme are in that warship's cargo," Myrlin told me. "If our own scientists can't work it out, the Tetrax surely can."

  Our own scientists. He believed that he was human. Was the belief enough to make him human? Some would think so, others wouldn't. I had to decide which side I was on.

  "It can't have been easy to hijack a starship, and escaping from what was left of the Salamandran surface," I observed, thoughtfully.

  "No, it wasn't," he admitted.

  "You must be an exceptional human being."

  "I think I am," he said. "In fact, I know I am."

  29

  We saw another predator when we stopped to rest, but this one didn't attack. It looked at us from a distance, and went away. Maybe it was because we were between the rails, outside its territory—or maybe it just had a slightly smarter way of operating than the first one I'd met. We saw other animals, too, but mostly just their rear ends as they disappeared from view.

  "I hope we reach the terminus soon," I said. "All this walking is just using up time. It wasn't supposed to be like this—the big discovery was supposed to have a lot more immediacy than this."

  "We'll get there," he assured me.

  "Is that just self-reassurance, or do you know something I don't?" I asked.

  "How could I possibly know anything you don't?" he asked.

  "I don't know," I said. "I don't know how much the Salamandrans knew about Asgard, or what they might have piped into your brain while you were growing in that tank. Susarma Lear wondered whether you might have an objective in mind—a specific reason for coming here."

  "I told you what the reason was," he reminded me. "I knew there weren't many humans—and that the Tetrax are biotech-minded."

  "The galaxy is full of places with no humans at all," I pointed out. "And there are a lot more Tetrax on the Tetron homeworld than there are here. If you want your story to ring true, you might want to modify that particular part of it."

  I couldn't see much of his face behind the plate in his helmet, except for his outsized nose, but I knew that he was looking at me long and hard.

  "Okay," he said, eventually. "I told you the truth, but not the whole truth. I didn't know anything about the programme of which I was a part when I was liberated. I thought I really was a prisoner of war. When my liberators first became suspicious that something odd had been going on, they didn't figure out immediately that I was part of it. They asked for my help trying to figure it out, because I'd been on the spot. Local knowledge, you see. I tried to help them, as best I could. Why shouldn't I? I began to realise what I was before they did—not long before, but long enough to give me an advantage. I think I found out quite a bit more than they did—which is how I know that I'm no threat, although they're not so sure. I also found out that the Salamandrans had to buy in technics to help them get the programme started."

  "Tetron technics?"

  "I don't know. Not from the Tetron homeworld, that's for sure."

  "From Asgard? You're saying that the Salamandrans bought bootleg military biotech from Asgard?"

  "I can't be certain," he admitted, "but I saw documents and equipment marked with a symbol shaped like this"—he drew a picture in the empty air with the forefinger of his right gauntlet—"and Asgard was named as a port of departure. It might have been a cover story of some kind, but I didn't have any other leads. Once I'd found out all I could about Asgard, it seemed at least plausible that it might have been something excavated from the levels."

  "I could see how you might jump to that conclusion," I said, thoughtfully. "If so, I bet the scavenger who found it was paid a pittance for the discovery. If someone's bootlegging local technics, it needn't necessarily be the Tetrax . . . and if Tetrax are involved, they might not be operating with the blessing of their own people. Black marketeering of every kind is rife in Skychain City, and it isn't all run by the vormyr."

  "It doesn't really matter any more," he said, "but it seemed to be a potentially-sensitive item of information. I didn't want to mention it, until ..."

  "Until you realised that I needed more convincing of your absolute honesty. I'm flattered. After all, while you have the guns and I don't, my opinion of your honesty doesn't matter much, does it?"

  He didn't give the flame-pistol back. I hadn't supposed that he would.

  "We'd better move on," he said. "We won't get to the terminus by sitting still."

  It was fine by me; I was feeling a little better. We set off along the track yet again.

  "There's energy to spare here," I observed, after we'd gone a little way further. "The ecosystem may seem degenerate, and the artefacts we've seen so far are definitely long past their period of use, but there's no obvious reason why evolution shouldn't be progressive. Given that this is an artificial habitat—a big cage, in essence—the fact that the power's still switched on means that things really ought to be working according to plan. I can't believe that this is anybody's plan, but it's certainly not a plan that went awry millions of years ago. The humanoids who lived here must have suffered a fairly recent catastrophe. It's possible, I suppose, that the heat fuelling the ecosystem is leaking in from other levels, rather than actually being laid on, but that's not the kind of situation that could have endured for millions of years either. Are you following all this?"

  "I understand what you're saying," he confirmed, "but it's not the most urgent matter on my mind."

  "No, it's not," I admitted. "Okay, what do you want to talk about, Mr. Myrlin? Is it Mr. Myrlin, or is Myrlin your first name?"

  "It's my surname," he said. "At least, it's the surname the Salamandrans made up for me. My forenames are supposed to be Alexander James. I don't really feel comfortable with them, now that I know the memories associated with them are fake."

  "But you're content with Myrlin?"

  "With a 'y,' " he reminded me. "Or maybe a 'why not'? Everybody needs a name, Mr. Rousseau."

  "You can call me Mike," I said, generously.

  "I'm not a magician," he told me. "I'm not a monster either. It's just a name, and I'm just a human being, like you."

  He was protesting too much, but who could blame him?

  "It's okay," I assured him. "I'm not the one you need to convince."

  "The horizon's getting brighter," he said. "I can't see any buildings yet, but I thi
nk we're getting close."

  He was right. The "sky" was definitely brighter in the direction we were headed. Given the closeness of the horizon, the brightly-lit region couldn't be far away. I increased my stride, although I couldn't match his. He moved ahead of me effortlessly enough.

  I wondered if I ought to change the radio channel while he was distracted, to make contact with the star-captain and reassure her that I was still okay—but I'd have had to explain why I'd been out of contact for so long, and where I was, and what I was doing . . .

  All in all, it seemed simpler just to keep going. After all, in spite of what Myrlin had said a few minutes ago, the only thing that really mattered was the mystery of Asgard. It might not be the most urgent matter on his mind, but it was still the most urgent on mine.

  As he drew further ahead, I tried to break into a run, but the cold-suit wasn't built for it. He had the longer legs, so he was the one who came in sight of the city first—but I got there as soon as I could.

  I was hoping for something that would really bend my mind, but I knew that I would be over-optimistic to expect it. I'd seen enough of the habitat to be pretty certain that we weren't about to meet the humanoids who had built Asgard, or any equally exciting alternative.

  The city was decaying. Like everything else in the ecosystem, it seemed to have been deteriorating for a long time, though not for millions of years. Walls were crumbling; doorways yawned; the streets were overgrown and littered. The one thing untouched by the effects of long neglect was the system of lights; no frail bioluminescence had ever held domain over this place; it was illuminated by countless incandescent bulbs, each one the size of a humanoid head. Whatever repair system had been entrusted with the job of keeping the network in good order was obviously fully functional.

  What the light displayed to us, though, was quite the opposite.