Asgard's Secret Read Online Free Page B

hadn't been
human, he wouldn't even have known the names of the languages.
    "You might
look in the bar on the corner." The supervisor added, in a confidential
manner, apparently having warmed to my presence, "Mr. Lyndrach often
drinks in there, and it has a high ceiling."
    "Thanks,"
I said. "I will."
    I did, too—I just
kept right on making one mistake after another.
    Saul wasn't
anywhere to be seen in the bar, but there was a human called Simeon Balidar
sitting in a booth, looking expectantly about him as if he were waiting for
someone. He caught sight of me as soon as I walked through the door and waved
to me.
    I didn't like
Balidar much. He was a scavenger, like me, but he didn't have a truck of his
own. He hired himself out to anyone and everyone—except the C.R.E., who seemed
to him to be way too safe. He'd always thought that he and I were kindred
spirits, and had never understood why I didn't agree with him—but he did know a
lot of people, including Saul, so I went over to the booth.
    I only wanted
answers to a couple of questions, but Balidar was the kind of guy who couldn't
possibly answer a question without making a big thing of it, so I had to let
him buy me a drink.
    "No," he
said, when he finally got around to answering my questions. "Saul hasn't
been in today—I haven't seen him since the day before yesterday. I don't know
anything about a giant called Myrlin."
    I sipped my drink,
wondering how to carry the conversation forward now that my reason for getting
involved in it had evaporated. "You don't, by any chance, know a Spirellan
called Heleb?" I said. "Has a little brother named Lema?"
    His eyes narrowed.
"Why?" he asked.
    It was, in its way,
a very revealing answer, but I figured I ought to tread carefully if I were
going to persuade him to expand on it. "Oh, I heard that he's putting
together a team," I said. "Sounded like your kind of thing—good pay,
adventurous . . . the antithesis of everything the dear old C.R.E. stands
for."
    "Are you going
to get involved?" he asked, in a way that suggested to me that he already
knew about the expedition and Heleb's offer. I began to wonder, in
fact, whether it might have been Balidar who'd put them on to me in the first
place.
    "Maybe,"
I said. "I've had several offers. Heleb's might be the best, but I don't
know who he's working for. He was careful not to tell me."
    "Does it
matter?" he asked stupidly.
    "Maybe, maybe
not," I said, "but I'm certainly not going to sign on until I know,
am I? It shouldn't be too difficult to find out."
    "No," he
said. "I suppose not. Look—there's the people I'm waiting for. Would you
care to join us?"
    I looked over my
shoulder. Two Zabarans had just come into the bar and they were making straight
for the booth. They seemed harmless enough, and probably were. Zabarans had the
reputation of being easy to get along with. They also had the reputation of
being very enthusiastic gamblers—which was, I figured, why Simeon Balidar was
waiting for them. He had always fancied himself as a card player, although I'd
played with him and Saul a dozen times without ever detecting any conspicuous
talent.
    "What are you
playing?" I asked.
    He named a Zabaran
game. I knew the rules, but I didn't want to take any risks.
    "It's
okay," he said, in English. "I know these guys. They're a soft touch.
If it were just me, they'd probably gang up on me, but with two of us in the
game . . . we'll start off with low stakes, just to get the feel of
things."
    I thought about it
for half a minute, and then said: "Okay, I'll play for a while—on one
condition."
    "What's
that?" he asked.
    "Tell me who
Heleb works for."
    He shrugged his
shoulders. "Like you say," he said, still speaking English, after a
fashion, "you could find out easily enough. He works for Amara Guur."
    He got up then to
follow the Zabarans into a back room. I followed him, wondering what Amara Guur
could possibly want with someone like me.
    I'd never met Guur,
but I knew him by