Asgard's Heart Read Online Free Page A

a real and
powerful being—one who could readily aspire to be reckoned one of the
"gods" to which Asgard was supposedly home.
    "I have an uncomfortable feeling," I said,
"that you might be inclined to find rather more meaning in my little
adventure than I want to look for."
    "On the contrary," she replied sweetly.
"You have already declared your intention of penetrating to the very
lowest levels of the macroworld. You are already determined to undertake a
journey to the mysterious Centre, and have asked me to try to discover a route
that would take you there. It may be that this is a search which will take both
of us into unexpected realms ... let us not
discount the possibility that the way to the Centre is already engraved in the
hidden recesses of your own mind. Whatever cried to you for help may also have
given you the means to supply that help."
    I swallowed a lump which had somehow appeared in my
throat. "I may be an Achillean by birth," I said, "but I'm not
exactly cut from the same cloth as Perseus. His father, as I recall, was
Zeus."
    "I cannot pretend to have a complete
understanding of fleshly beings," she told me, "despite what I have
learned from my scions. But I do not think that the paternity of your flesh is
of any significance here. It is the author of the software within your brain
that concerns us now. The mind which you brought here carries a legacy of
knowledge and craft which must be deemed the property of your entire race . . .
and what has now been added to it we can only guess."
    I wasn't ready for that. I shook my head, and turned
away with a dismissive gesture.
    "Much more of that," I remarked, and not in
jest, "and you'll be scaring me more than the gorgon's head did. Hostile
software that wants to drive me mad is something I could maybe be cured of—you're
talking about something a hell of a lot more ominous than a tapeworm."
    "It is conjecture only," she reassured me.
"We must know more before we plan to act, though time is of the essence.
We must find out whether anyone else has had such an experience."
    Although I was the only one who'd consciously made
contact during that dark hour when the Isthomi had come close to destruction, I
wasn't the only one who's interfaced. Myrlin had been hooked up too—and so had
994-Tulyar. I wondered what kind of imagery could be mined from the
mythological symbol-system of a Tetron mind.
    "Do you want me to ask?" I said
unenthusiastically.
    "The inquiry would come better from myself,"
she assured me. "It may be necessary to be diplomatic, in the case of the
Tetron."
    I readily forgave her the impolite implication that
diplomacy was not my strong suit. "In that case," I said,
"perhaps I should try to get a bit more sleep."
    "If you dream," she said, before she faded
out, "be sure to pay attention as carefully as you can."
    It wasn't the most soothing instruction I'd ever taken
to bed with me, but as things turned out, I couldn't obey it anyhow. Whatever
dreams disturbed my mind failed, for once, to penetrate the blissful wall of my
unconsciousness.

4
    I was
awakened from my peaceful slumbers by the delicate trilling of the telephone
apparatus that the Isthomi had installed in my quarters. I always hung the
mouthpiece above the bed before retiring, so that I could respond to
interruptions with the minimum of effort. I didn't even bother to open my eyes—I
just fished the thing from its perch, thumbed the ACCEPT CALL button, and
mumbled an incoherent semblance of a greeting into the mike.
    "Jesus, Rousseau," said the voice at the
other end. "You're supposed to be an officer in the Star Force. Why the
hell are you asleep at this hour?"
    "Time," I said, "is purely relative.
"What you call 'this hour' can be any damn hour we care to call it. What
do you want, Susarma?"
    "For a start," she replied, "I want you
to call me 'Colonel.' Also, I would like to invite you to accompany me on a
little walk in the garden."
    I opened my eyes then and held the phone away from