Asgard's Secret (39 page)

I had always assumed
that gangsters were naturally stupid, and that those galactic races which
preserved the morals of crocodiles were essentially simple-minded. Amara Guur
clearly didn't see things the same way. I'd always resented the fact that the
Tetrax considered humans as barbaric as the vormyr, because I'd always
considered it obvious that, whereas the vormyr really
were
barbaric, humans weren't so bad; the vormyr obviously had a very different view
of the matter—they presumably felt insulted to be put in the same category as
us.

"That's
stupid," I told him. "You can't decide whether you owe someone moral
consideration on the basis of what he eats; you have to do it on the basis of
intelligence."

I knew as soon as
I'd said it that he wouldn't be at all impressed. I could even think of several
arguments he might use in response. After all, you
could
argue that what
we are and how we think is very largely determined by what we eat. Maybe I could
see both sides of the argument, because I was an unrepentant omnivore. But he didn't
want to continue the discussion at that level. To him, it was perfectly
obvious that the opinions of any lousy bunch of leaf-eaters didn't matter a
damn, and his kind had retained that conviction even while they coexisted with
dozens of herbivorous species in the galactic community.

No wonder,
I thought,
they
get on so well with the Spirellans. No wonder everyone else hates their guts.
No wonder they've established their own delinquent subculture in Skychain City.

I recalled that
Sleaths were vegetarian. It no longer seemed surprising that they'd murder a
man just to put me in the frame. To Guur, it wasn't really murder, because a
Sleath wasn't worth an atom of moral consideration. I wondered what he thought
of me.

"I suppose you
think the ones who are watching us are good predators," I said. "That
they put us in this cage to see how good
we
are."

Guur turned away,
looking first at Khalekhan's dead body, then at the luscious flowers of the
forest.

"No," he
said, sadly. "They are leaf-eaters. I would like to think otherwise, but
everything tells me it is so."

"Everything?"

"Armour,"
he said. "Armour is the investment of leaf- eaters. The predator is quick
and sleek—his weapons are offensive. None but they who feed on seed and branch
would armour a world as this one is armoured, and hide themselves as these ones
hide. These are not hunters; they are those who would grow fat. Like the
Tetrax, they would make their food in machines, dead and bland, vile and unclean.
The universe is full of herds, who do not like the ones who truly live. But the
law bids predators be prudent. The predator is clever, the predator deceives.
The ethics of the herd preserve the herd, but only until the day when the
hunter comes. This herd already knows what we are, and what we can do—it does
not fear us, but it fears what we
are.
It fears the
hunters who are still to come."

"You could lay
down your arms," I suggested, "and try to soothe those fears a
little."

I knew it was
useless. A real leaf-eater suggestion. He didn't care what the watchers would
think of him. He was a predator.

"The predator is clever,"
I repeated subvocally.
"The predator deceives. Like hell."

"The
star-captain's a predator too," I told him. "She just got back from
wiping out an entire world. I couldn't say for sure, but I have a sneaking
suspicion that the Salamandrans were meat-eaters too. I may look like a
leaf-eater, but the Star Force are right at the top of the food chain—take my
word for it."

He was still
staring into my eyes, though his pupils had shrunk now to thin vertical slits,
so that his eyes were a dark orange from rim to rim, like angry flames.

"Your kind is
confused," he told me. "You feel the strength of the true law, and
yet you capitulate with the ethics of the herd. You seek a balance that cannot
exist, and it weakens you. Your kind does not know whether it is a tribe or a
herd, and I can use that. When the star-captain sees that I have you, she will
hesitate. She will try to bargain for your life, and she will lose her own life
in consequence of that hesitation."

I thought he was
probably wrong, but I didn't know whether that was anything to be glad about.
In fact, I didn't know how to react at all, and in that uncertainty I suppose
his point was proved. I was confused all right.

I salved my
conscience by wondering whether that confusion was really such a bad thing. I remembered
the Tetron theory of history that 69-Aquila had described to me, and wondered
how it accommodated the kind of interspecific psychological differences that
meant so much to Amara Guur. For all that they were leaf-eaters by nature, the
Tetrax seemed predatory enough in their sanctioning of slavery and their
notions of obligation. Behind their herdlike ethics there was real power and real
strength.

Omnivores of the universe unite!
I thought.
Let's
show the hunters just how double-faced we can be!

"Someone
moving," hissed Jacinthe Siani, close to Amara Guur's pointed ear.

The vormyran
turned, quickly. He grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me away from the wall. He
pushed me into a position between himself and the flowery forest.

"You will be
my shield," he murmured. "Keep perfectly still, and be silent. While
you are useful, I will let you live. The prudent predator never kills without
purpose."

This ambiguous
promise did not seem to me to be at all encouraging.

"Guur!"
called a female voice from the jungle. "I want to talk!"

"I agree
entirely," Amara Guur called back. "We are very sorry about the
unfortunate accident, which occurred when my foolish friend was overtaken by
panic. We must all

work together now. Please come
forward."

I glanced from side
to side. The vormyran called Kaat was to one side of me, Jacinthe Siani to the
other. Neither Heleb nor the other vormyran was visible now—they had each moved
surreptitiously into the thick undergrowth.

If I had been a
braver man, I dare say that I would have shouted out to tell the star-captain
that she was being invited into the jaws of a trap. As it was, I simply could
not find a voice.

I watched Susarma
Lear—apparently unarmed—step into a small open space between two of the great
coloured flowers, and my heart sank as I wondered whether this curious garden
might rather be a kind of arena, where the emperors of Asgard staged their
circuses. It was pretty obvious now just who the lions were—and I couldn't help
fearing that the poor benighted Christians might be unable to put up any kind
of resistance at all.

34

"We deeply regret the death of your
soldier," said Amara Guur smoothly. "It was an unfortunate error,
caused by the shock of discovering ourselves in this astonishing situation."

"I can
understand that," replied Susarma Lear coolly. "We don't want to
fight your people. We came to kill the android, and that's what we want to do.
I gather that you don't have any reason to like him either—that you'd be just
as happy to see him dead as we would."

I felt Guur relax
slightly, though he kept the needier pressed into my spine, just below the
neck.

"That is
correct," he said. "The giant . . . the android . . . killed a number
of valued men. We certainly would not wish to interfere with your
mission."

"Once the
android is dead," the star-captain went on, "our next priority is
getting out of here. There's no point in wasting our energies trying to kill
one another. We need to work together."

"I
agree," said Guur.

"Then I suggest
that you put down your guns, so that we can talk in a civilized manner."

Guur relaxed a
little more, and I felt the pressure on my vertebra relent. But he didn't drop
the gun. Jacinthe Siani let the barrel of the crash-gun droop, but the vormyr
to the other side of me didn't move a muscle.

"Nothing would
give me greater pleasure," lied Amara Guur. "But you will appreciate
my desire to be careful. We can see you, empty-handed, but we cannot see your
companions."

I found my voice at
last. "He's lying," I said to the star- captain. "If I were you,
I'd get the hell out of here."

I felt the gun
boring into my back again, and Guur's hard-nailed fingers bit into my arm where
he was still holding me.

"Mr. Rousseau
does not understand," he said flatly.

The star-captain's
face never changed expression. I couldn't tell whether she was looking at me or
at the creature behind me.

"Trooper
Rousseau is in deep trouble," she said, laconically. "He faces
charges of cowardice and desertion. He ran out on us when he thought we were in
trouble. If you want him, you can keep him. Frankly, I don't care."

They say that when
the chips are down, you find out who your real friends are. I didn't seem to
have any. The only person with whom I'd recently exchanged an amicable word was
Myrlin, who seemed even more unpopular than I was. I had been worried before,
but now I began to feel downright terrified. I didn't know the star-captain
well enough to fathom her real motives and true beliefs. I knew that Amara Guur
was a verminous bastard who would kill everyone in sight given half a chance,
but what the star- captain's game was I really couldn't be certain. Maybe she
did think she could make a deal. Maybe she did figure that zapping the android
was so important that it was worth taking sides with Amara Guur.

"If your men
will come out of hiding," said Guur, "mine will do the same. When we
are all clearly visible, we will all lay down our arms. Is that
agreeable?"

"Certainly,"
said Susarma Lear, with apparent equanimity.

Then, somewhere
away to the left, there was the unmistakable sound of a flame-pistol erupting.
There was a great gout of smoke, and the jungle went mad as every oversized

insect in the place started chattering in
blind panic.

I had already
planned my move. I ducked out of the way of Guur's needier, stuck my arm
between his legs, and heaved upwards. In the low gravity Guur weighed less than
half what he normally did, and although I couldn't lift him vertically I got
him off the ground, pitching him sideways so that he cannoned into Jacinthe
Siani and knocked her flying. The crash-gun she'd been holding flew from her
grasp and landed in the bell of a huge flower whose petals were amber streaked
with dark red.

Amara Guur was too
clever to let go of his needier, but for the moment he was all tied up trying
to collect himself. His reflexes were quick, but they were the wrong reflexes
for this kind of gravity—when he thrust against the ground, trying to bring
himself back to his feet, he thrust far too hard, and completely lost his
balance again, tumbling in mid-air in a long somersault.

The vormyran Guur
had called Kaat hadn't been at all inconvenienced by his master's acrobatics,
but when he'd jerked his own needier up to the firing position he'd also
trusted his old reflexes, which were geared to functioning in Asgard-normal
gravity. The shots he fired went high and wide.