“What didn’t they believe?” I countered.
“They didn’t believe that everyone would start trying to kill one another. They didn’t believe that you could all wake up in this bizarre situation, and promptly start figuring out how to stage a massacre.”
“Some people have no imagination,” I observed drily.
“They don’t do any killing themselves,” he said. “I suspect they don’t do much dying either. They seem to have their world and their lives pretty much under control.”
“Bully for them,” I said. “How is it, exactly, that you seem to be the one calling the shots around here?”
“I made a deal with them.”
“So I gather. But what made them strike a deal with you?
Why not the star-captain? Why not Amara Guur? Why not me?”
“My interests and theirs appear to coincide,” he said. “I need a home… a life… a place to belong. I was more than ready to volunteer to stay here, and help them out.”
“Help them out with what? Their world and their lives are under control, remember?”
“They need time to think, Mr. Rousseau. Time to decide what to do—about the universe.”
“About the universe?” I had the feeling that I was getting out of my philosophical depth. It was all becoming a little too surreal.
“They didn’t know the universe existed,” he told me. “They thought Asgard was all that there was… layer upon layer, ad infinitum. Now, they have to come to terms with the idea of the surface… of infinite space… they have to figure out what it all means, in terms of who they might be, and where they might be, and why.”
“They’re not the builders, then? They didn’t make Asgard and they don’t know what it’s for?”
“No. They’re not the builders. They know a little bit about a few hundreds of levels, but they’re no wiser about what’s in the centre than you are. They don’t seem to do a lot of exploring themselves, but they do have robots. They’d never been up Saul’s dropshaft before, though. They had no idea what was up on three. Now they know about the cold levels… about the galactic community… about Tetrax and vormyr and the human/Salamandran war. I get the impression that they’re a little anxious about it all. I suspect that they’re not very aggressive, and that they think what just happened here is rather horrible.”
I thought it was rather horrible myself, but I didn’t bother to say so.
“So you’re going to stay and teach them about the universe,” I said, instead. I smiled sardonically, because it was, in its way, a wonderful irony. He was newborn, and all that he knew about the universe, and about humanoidkind, had been pumped into him by some kind of machine. He wasn’t real. Maybe that was why these mysterious underworld-dwellers liked him so much.
“Why’d you stage the bloodbath?” I asked him. “Why not simply have your friends put Guur and his bully boys in cold storage? They must have given us a pretty thorough going-over while they had us in their clutches for twelve whole days. They didn’t have to wake anyone up at all. They could have used us as founts of information about the universe, then thrown us out with the garbage, if they wanted to.”
“I thought you’d like to go back, Mr Rousseau. I wanted to do you a good turn. The star-captain too, perverse as it may seem. I don’t really have anything against her, you understand. She couldn’t help but see things the way she did.”
“You steered me straight into Amara Guur,” I pointed out. “He could have killed me any time.”
Myrlin picked something up from the ground. It was the needier that Seme had given to me so that I could wave it at Jacinthe Siani. I assumed that it must have been the one which Guur had carried. He pointed it at the sky, and pressed the trigger. Nothing happened.
“It’s not loaded,” I said.
“It’s loaded,” he said. “It just isn’t capable of firing.”
Strangely, I felt bitterly disappointed. A little while ago, I’d done the only heroic thing which I’d ever done in my entire life. I’d pulled off a real coup, turning the tables on one of the most evil bastards in the known universe—but his gun had already been fixed. The poor fool hadn’t had a chance. All the heroics suddenly seemed very silly.
“The gun that killed Khalekhan wasn’t useless,” I pointed out coldly.
“Khalekhan was a casualty,” he said. “As Guur pointed out, it was a stupid misjudgement on Heleb’s part. He was a combat soldier. I didn’t have anything against him, but I’m not about to cry over his passing. It was part of the price that had to be paid, if any of you were to go back to the surface. You’re the only one I’d care to trust, Mr. Rousseau, and I’d be careful even then. The bloodbath wasn’t entirely my idea; as I said, the people I’m with now weren’t entirely convinced, despite what they distilled from your software while you were asleep, what kind of beings we really are. Now they know. But I did help them plan it all, and I was ready and willing for people to be killed. I was also quite prepared to be unsporting, and give Amara Guur a disabled gun. I guess I’m no better than the rest of you—a pretty good imitation of humankind, wouldn’t you say?”
Too goody I’d have said.
“Why did they agree to let me go, if they’re as anxious as you say?” I inquired. “Why are they letting you tell me all this?”
“They don’t particularly want to keep you. They know that the secret of the dropshaft can’t be contained indefinitely, given that you left the notebook on the surface. They don’t see any harm in letting you out. Of course, you’ll never find the way down here again. They’ll block the way permanently. The Tetrax can have the levels all the way down to the bottom of Saul’s shaft, but that’s the floor so far as they’re concerned—until they learn a great deal more about how the native technics work.
“As for this little conversation—I suppose it might be seen as self-indulgence on my part. But there is a utilitarian aspect to it. You’d have realised that I wasn’t dead. You were the only one who could figure it out, but after the lion, I was sure that you would guess what had happened. I don’t think you’d ever have managed to convince the star-captain, even if you’d tried, because she wants me to be dead so very badly. But I’d rather you didn’t even try to convince her. I’d rather you let her go on believing what she believes, quite unchallenged. I’d rather you were a coconspirator, Mr. Rousseau. I want you to be on my side. You are on my side, aren’t you, Mr Rousseau?”
I looked at him tiredly. “You can call me Mike,” I said, with a slight croak in my voice.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “And you do want to return to the surface, don’t you? To claim your big reward? To be the man who found the way to more than a hundred new levels?”
I hesitated for a moment. But then I nodded. “Yes I do,” I said.
“That’s what I thought. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Sorry you can’t stay. I think I might get the bigger rewards.”
“Like what?”
“Immortality… that sort of thing. As I said, I haven’t even met my hosts in the flesh yet, but I get the idea that they’re very clever people. Very clever indeed.”
There wasn’t much to say in reply to that.
Another thought struck me, though I didn’t voice it. These people didn’t know what was in the centre—they had no more idea about who built Asgard than I did—but if anyone could find out, they could. They were threatening to make sure that the Tetrax never would, but now they knew about the universe, their own curiosity was sure to have been stimulated. I was being turned back from my journey to the centre, but Myrlin was only just starting his. He had every chance of getting there, whether he became immortal or not.