Asgard's Conquerors (17 page)

Although we were carrying flimsies with messages in Tetron script,
which we were to pass on to any apparently trustworthy person, I was not at all
dismayed by the absence of friendly natives. The longer we had to look around,
the better.

"Any chance of hopping on a train?" asked Serne.

"Sure," I said, "but a train might carry us straight
into trouble. We have two choices—we can set off on foot along the walkways,
which might make us a little conspicuous, or we can go under the carpet, into
the tunnels that cut through the thermosynthetic feedways. I favour the walkways—there
are plenty of places to duck out of sight, as long as we see the opposition
before they see us."

We began to make our way across the food-producing region, heading
toward the centre of the city, although we had no intention of getting too
close. It wasn't long before we caught glimpses of other people. They were
workers, servicing the automatic machinery. They looked like galactics—a couple
were Zabarans—but I wasn't entirely prepared to take appearances for granted.
We didn't know for certain that all the invaders looked like human beings. It
had crossed my mind that maybe only the shock troops were human, doing the
dirty work for paymasters whose appearance we couldn't know.

We stayed out of sight until we reached a position from which we could
see a roadway curving around the outer city limits. It was heavy with traffic—mostly
automated transports, but with a number of military vehicles thrown in. We saw
armoured cars go past at irregular intervals, but whether they were patrols or
part of some desultory troop- movement we could only guess.

We moved a little closer, and then, as we moved past a section of wall,
we saw a single humanoid standing on a railway, checking the engine of a
broken-down train. We studied him from hiding, and 74-Scarion identified him as
a Ksylian. I'd seen the species before—brown-skinned and big-eared, with dark
eyes that seemed to be forever mournful—but I didn't know much about them.

"You'd better let me approach him," said 74-Scarion.
"He's certain to take you for invaders."

"Okay," I said. "Go ahead."

The Tetron moved from hiding and climbed up on to a walkway that took
him across to the tracks on which the train ran. The moment the Ksylian saw
him, he stopped work and looked furtively around. 74-Scarion talked to him for
about fifteen minutes, while I bit my lip impatiently— then he turned to beckon
us over. There was no way to judge from the Ksylian's alien expression what his
reaction was to the sight of us.

We were able to crouch down beside the train, so that we were virtually
invisible to anyone else who might happen by, while a rapid exchange of
information took place.

"He says that everything is quiet in the city," said 74-
Scarion. "When the invasion first occurred there was momentary
resistance, but the peace officers were ordered to surrender by their
commanders, and the killing soon stopped. At first, the invaders brought all
the galactics from their homes, lining them up in the streets, but then they allowed
almost everyone to return to their ordinary work. They stopped the moving
walkways, though, and closed down some of the city's other systems. He says
that there must have been at least ten or twenty thousand of the invaders—an
enormous force—involved in the initial attack. Since then, he thinks they may
have moved another ten or twenty thousand up into the city, but I don't think
we can rely on his judgment. They have taken over some of the
living-accommodations, and he says that many of the citizens are now living
three or four to a room.

"The language barrier was very difficult, he says. It still
creates many problems. The aliens need him and others like him, because they
don't understand the machines, but he's very uneasy about the fact that they
can't tell him what they expect. He says that the invaders have not really
managed to figure out who does what, and what kinds of work are essential to
the running of the city. He says that they're stupid, and don't understand
Tetron technology at all—the Tetrax apparently won't co-operate with them, and
they're having great difficulty in keeping things going. He says that their own
technology is very primitive."

That seemed puzzling. I'd been assuming that although they looked like
Neanderthalers, these Asgardians must be at least as sophisticated as the
Tetrax. If the Ksylian was right, it was sheer weight of numbers that had
allowed the invaders to overwhelm the city, and now that they had it they
didn't know how to run it.

"He thinks that the loss of life was greater than necessary,"
Scarion went on. "He has heard that thousands of people were shot, though
he does not know how much rumour to trust. He says that many citizens,
especially Tetrax, have been taken down into the lower levels—no one knows
where. This exodus is continuing, although it would take years to transport the
whole population of Skychain City. He thinks that the invaders would like to
take over the city entirely, but that the galactics are indispensable because
they know how things work. He says it doesn't much matter to him whether he
works for the Tetrax or the invaders, but he's scared of the invaders."

"What sorts of equipment are they bringing up?" I asked,
addressing my question directly to the Ksylian. His parole was oddly accented,
but we had no difficulty understanding one another.

"Armoured vehicles, many guns. They are working hard, trying to
understand our machinery. They have many men learning parole, and are using
many citizens as language teachers."

"Do they all look like me, or are there different races?"

"All those I have seen are your kind. I have heard, though, that
they have other peoples working for them as slaves."

"Humanoid?"

"Yes, but I do not know which of the galactic races they resemble
most. I have not seen any of these slaves—not knowingly."

"How easy is it to move about on the surface? Could we get up into
the streets under the dome without being apprehended?"

"It is very difficult. They try to keep people off the streets.
They issue passes, in their own writing—because no one understands their
language, such passes are hard to forge."

"Would it be safe for us to use the telephones, or would they be
able to monitor our calls?"

"I do not know. They are not clever with the Tetron communications
systems, but they do have telephones of their own."

We had already figured that the phones were a bad risk.

"Is it safe for us to move around down here?"

The Ksylian shook his head, but I wasn't sure what the gesture meant in
his terms. "Perhaps," he said, noncommittally. "They allow the
workers to do their jobs— they are desperate to maintain and improve food
production. They have found out which food is best for them, and they are
trying to produce more, but they do not know how. The Tetrax will not help
them."

Most of the food produced in the factory-fields consisted of different
varieties of "manna"—compounds precisely matched to the nutritional
requirements of particular groups of galactic humanoids. There were enough
different kinds of humanoid in Skychain City to necessitate production of eight
or ten brands. If appearances were anything to go by, the invaders would need
my old brand, which had been produced in much less quantity than the brands
preferred by the Tetrax—or, for that matter, the brands marketed for specialist
carnivores like the vormyr or the brands designed for specialist vegetarians
like sleaths.

"There's one way we might get a close look at the streets on the
surface," said Serne.

"What's that?" I asked him.

"Stop an armoured car, zap the guys inside, and steal their
uniforms. Then we could drive around to our heart's content."

"It's a bit too melodramatic," I told him. "Maybe
later."

"Please go now," said the Ksylian, obviously thinking that if
we'd reached the stage when we could talk among ourselves, we could take off
and stop making him nervous.

"Can you get a message to a Tetron on the surface?" I asked
him. "Preferably a high-number man."

The Ksylian thought about it. I think he wanted to say no. But his
first loyalty was still to the Tetrax, and he probably figured that there was
an even chance that the Tetrax would one day be back in charge. When that time
came, it would be a lot healthier to be the guy that had helped out than the
guy who had refused.

"Perhaps," he said, shaking his head again.

74-Scarion produced the written text that we already had prepared. It
was written in a Tetron language, so the Ksylian couldn't read it any more than
the invaders would be able to. We figured that it was safe—the Ksylian could
probably think up a dozen excuses for having an incomprehensible bit of paper
in his possession, if he was asked. He had nothing to lose by trying to deliver
it.

I couldn't read the paper either, but Tulyar had told us that it was an
invitation to a rendezvous and a request for detailed information about the
situation in the city. We were assuming that the Tetrax in Skychain City had
continued to gather intelligence even though their ways of beaming information
out had been blocked.

The Ksylian pocketed the paper, knowing that it was the price of being
left alone.

We didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket, so we went on to make
a couple of further contacts in much the same fashion. We didn't find out much
more, save for a few items of hearsay that were blatantly untrustworthy, but we
did get corroboration of the Ksylian's impressions. Everyone we spoke to was
agreed that the invaders seemed to be technologically primitive, and that they
were having one hell of a time trying to figure out how to take over the machinery
the Tetrax had used to run the city. We were told that the invaders were not
pleased with the Tetrax, because of their unwillingness to help.

This information worried me. The Tetrax who'd briefed us must have
suspected this, but hadn't mentioned it. I'd assumed that they were frightened
of the invaders because of their probable technological supremacy, but now it
looked as if they might be worried because their people were in the hands of
reckless barbarians. I'd also assumed that the invasion was a response to my
penetration of the lower levels, but there seemed to be no evidence of any connection
between these invaders and the biotech-minded supermen who'd taken Myrlin in.
Maybe the invaders were just the pawns—but if so, why hadn't the players come
forth to help them with their technical difficulties?

We had too much work to do, though, to allow me to spend time pondering
such questions. We handed out a couple more invitations for delivery to Tetrax
in the city— one to a Zabaran, one to a Turkanian. We didn't see any Tetrax,
nor did we get close enough to any invaders to be seen by them.

By the time we set off for home we figured that we could count the day
a modest success. We'd spent about six hours in the paddy-fields—during which
time we failed to find anything much that Serne, Vasari, and I cared to eat,
though 74-Scarion picked up a couple of snacks.

Once we were on the way back we didn't expect that anything much would
go wrong. I was already thinking ahead to the next danger point—when we turned
up for the meeting we'd arranged, to see what transpired.

As I've observed before, though, plans have a terrible tendency to go
wrong.

When we got back to the broken seal through which we'd entered, two of
the four cold-suits had vanished.

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