No spaceships left Asgard, except the sleek black cruisers manned by the priests of Aesir. _No man had ever returned from Asgard._
Stuart grinned mirthlessly. He'd learned a lesson, though he'd never profit by it now. Always before he'd been confident of his ability to outdrink anyone of his own weight and size. And certainly that slight, tired-eyed man at the Singing Star, in New Boston, should have passed out long before Stuart--under normal circumstances.
So the circumstances hadn't been quite normal. It was a frame. A beautiful, air-tight frame, because he'd never come back to squawk. Nobody came back from Asgard.
He shivered a little and looked up warily. There were legends, of course. The Watchers who patrolled the asteroid ceaselessly--robots, men said. They served the Aesir. As, in a way, all men served the Aesir.
No sound. No movement. Only the sullen crimson light beating down ominously from that dark sky.
Stuart took stock of his clothing. Regular leatheroid spaceman's rig; they'd left him that, anyway. Whoever _they_ were. He couldn't remember anything that had happened after the fifth drink with the tired-eyed man. There was a very faint recollection of running somewhere--seeing unpleasant things--and hearing two oddly unreal voices. But the memories slipped away and vanished as he tried to focus on them.
The hell with it. He was on Asgard. And that meant--something rather more unpleasant than death, if the legends were to be believed. A very suitable climax to an unorthodox life, in this era when obedience and law enforcement were the rigid rule.
Stuart picked up a heavy branch that might serve as a club. Then, shrugging, he turned westward, striking at random through the forest. No use waiting here till the Watchers came. At least--he could fight, as he had always fought as far back as he could remember.
There wasn't much room for fighters any more. Not under the Aesir rule. There were nations and kings and presidents, of course, but they were puppet figures, never daring to disobey any edicts that came from the mystery-shrouded asteroid hanging off the orbit of Mars, the tiny, artificial world that had ruled the System for a thousand years.
The Aesir. The inhuman, cryptic beings who--if legend were true--once had been human. Stuart scowled, trying to remember.