Demons

by Gardner Dozois

  The world has different owners at sunrise . . . Even your own garden does not belong to you.

  Anne Lindbergh

  Conrad Patrick reached over and shut off the alarm. The dream of soft flesh and dark hair faded into six o'clock on a Friday morning. Patrick lay there a moment, pushing Lilas out of his thoughts, keeping his mind dark with the room, his body numb.

  To move was to accept wakefulness, and this was unthinkable, for wakefulness must lead to knowledge, and then the problem barbs would begin to do their ulcerous work in his brain. They would begin, one by one, until all were in hideous clamor. None of them seemed ever to get really solved, and getting rid of one didn't necessarily mean he had solved it. More often, getting rid of it just meant he had found some sort of neutralizing paralysis, or that he had once more increased his pain threshold.

  Patrick got up heavily, found his robe and slippers, and stumbled into the bathroom, where he turned on the light and surveyed his face with overt distaste. It was a heavy, fleshy face, and the red hair and mustache were awry. He was not exactly thin, but not really fat, either. His cheeks and stomach showed the effects of myriad beers in convivial company. He considered these beers, these cheerful hours, one by one, going back, in a mirrored moment of wonder and gratitude. He considered what life would have been like without them, and as the realization hit, his forehead creased uneasily. He scowled, dashed water over his eyes, and reached for a towel.

  "Patrick," he muttered to himself in the mirror, "it's Friday. Another day has begun, and still the Company hasn't found you out."

  Patrick no longer knew exactly what he meant by this routine, which he had started some years before, when he was the newest chemical patent attorney with Hope Chemicals. He had first been a chemist, but not a very good one, and then, after he and Lilas had got married, he had gone to law school at night. After he got his LLB he had discovered, with more fatalism than dismay, that he was not a very good lawyer, either. Yet all was by no means lost. He was accepted by Hope's Patent Department. And not just barely accepted; he was accepted as an excellent chemical patent attorney. He found this incredible, but he did not fight it. And finally, he deliberately masked his supposed deficiencies; when he was in the company of chemists, he spoke as a lawyer, and when with lawyers, he didn't mind being just a fifty-fifty chemist-lawyer. They had his problem, too. It was like group therapy. Patent lawyers had a profound sympathy for each other.

  From the beginning he had thrown himself into his work with zest. And now, with Lilas and the baby gone, his work was not just an opiate; it was a dire necessity.

  He got the kettle boiling in the kitchen. There was now a pink glow in the east. He looked out the kitchen window and almost smiled. It was going to be a beautiful morning. He made the coffee quickly, four spoons of coffee powder in his pint mug, took the first bitter, exhilarating sip, tightened his robe about him, stepped out the kitchen door, and padded off down the garden path, holding his coffee mug carefully.

  This, again, was all part of his morning routine. Today, of course, there was a special reason. Theoretically the house and grounds were ready and waiting for a little party tonight, but it would do no harm to take a look around, down by the pool.

  The flagstone path lay down a grassy slope, and was lined with azaleas. He and Lilas had put them in together. At the foot of the slope was a tiny stream, fed mostly by a spring half a mile away, on his neighbor's property. In this little stream Patrick had contrived a series of pools by dint of fieldstone and mortar, slapped together with such indolence into the stream side that the result was a pleasing but entirely accidental naturalness. These little pools were bordered with watercress, cat-o'-nine-tails, arrowhead, water iris, and lovely things with names he could no longer remember. He and Lilas had splurged one summer and bought all manner of water plants by mail. They had got very muddy planting them, and they had sorrowed over those that had died the next spring or that the baby had happily yanked. And then suddenly everything had begun to grow like weeds, and in a wild way, it was all very pretty.

  The path along the stream led toward a grassy sward. Patrick stopped on the path a moment, and listened. Yes, there it was, very faint, like a tinkling of tiny bells. He held his breath. Around the turn of the path, and so far invisible, was the bench. He and Lilas used to sit here, overlooking the lily pond. Only then, of course, it wasn't the lily pond, but the baby's wading pool. It was . . . how long ago? . . . that she had splashed in the pool and her baby delight had shattered the garden peace. And that was what he heard now. And he could hear Lilas' answering laughter. This had happened to him on many past mornings. To him, it was not a conjured thing; it was faint, very far away, but it was real.

  He began to walk again, and rounded the bend in the path. But as soon as the pool and the bench came in view, the sounds stopped abruptly. He had tried to deal with the phenomenon logically. This led him to various alternative conclusions, neither of which he completely disbelieved: (a) he was subject to hallucinations; (b) Lilas and the baby were really there.

  Patrick sighed and looked about him. Here, all within a few steps of each other, were the lily pool, the benches, the outdoor grill, and the arbor. The arbor was a simple structure, framed with two-by-fours, bordered with lilacs that had never bloomed and which enclosed his "worktable." This was a stone-stepped table with a drawer, which contained writing materials and a few scribbled pages.

  He looked into the arbor. From somewhere up in the ceiling of honeysuckle there was a flutter of wings. Sparrows. The "room" seemed to concentrate the odor of grass clippings, fresh from yesterday's mowing. Patrick glanced over at the stone table and permitted himself the habitual morning question: Would he have a few moments to work on his article? This was followed by a prompt companion thought. He was being stupid even to think about it. In three years he had not even finished the first chapter. And already the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals had wrought far-reaching revisions in the law of prior printed publication. Maybe he should pick another subject. An article he could do quickly, get into print quickly, before the court could hand down a modifying decision. Somehow, there must be a way to get this thing off dead center. A top-flight professional in any field ought to publish. Not that he was really that good. Still, as Francis Bacon had said, a man owed a debt to his profession.

  He opened the drawer and pulled out the sheaf of papers. But he knew that he wasn't going to work on it this morning. A breeze fluttered the sheets. His eye cast about for a paperweight and found the candle bottle; a stub of candle sticking in the neck of a wine bottle, used when he sat here at night and did not want to use the floodlights. He put the bottle on the papers.

  Glumly he accepted his first inadequacy of the day. No use trying to hold the others back. The line forms to the right. The magic was gone from the morning; so be it. Let them come. He finished off his coffee. In his own garden he was a match for all of them. He felt girded and armored.

  They came.

  One. His department was about to lose a secretary—Sullivan's Miss Willow. He hadn't told Sullivan. But maybe Sullivan knew already. Maybe even Miss Willow knew. These things always seemed to get around. He didn't mind interdepartmental promotions for the girls. He'd used it himself on occasion. But he didn't like the way Harvey Jayne was using company personnel policy to pressure him. And right now was a bad time to lose a secretary, with all those Neol cases to get out. As an army travels on its stomach, so his Patent Department traveled on its typewriters, or more exactly, on the flying fingers of its stenographers as applied to the keys of those typewriters, "thereby to produce," as they say in patentese, a daily avalanche of specifications, amendments, appeals, contracts, and opinions.

  He halfway saw an angle here. Maybe he could boomerang the whole thing back on Harvey Jayne. Have to be careful, though. Jayne was a vice-president.

  Two, and getting worse. Jayne wanted publication clearance for the "Neol Technical Manual," and he wanted it today. It had to be cleared for
legal form, proofread, and back to the printers tonight, because bright and early Monday morning twenty-five crisp and shining copies, smelling beautifully of printer's ink, had to be on that big table in the Directors' Room. Monday, the Board was going to vote on whether the company would build a six-million-dollar Neol plant.

  Three, and still worse. John Fast, Neol pilot plant manager, wanted the Patent Department to write a very special contract. Consideration, soul of the party of the first part, in return for, inter alia, guarantee of success with Neol. It was impossible, and there was something horrid and sick in it, and yet Patrick was having the contract written by Sullivan, his contract expert, and in fact the first draft should be ready this morning. He was not going to refer Fast to the company psychiatrist. At least not yet. Maybe in two or three weeks, after Fast was through helping Sullivan get those new Neol cases on file in the Patent Office, he might casually mention this situation to the psychiatrist. Why did it always happen this way? Nobody could just go quietly insane without involving him. Forever and ever people like John Fast sought him out, involved him, and laid their madness upon him, like a becoming mantle.

  Fourth, and absolutely and unendurably the worst. The patent structure for the whole Neol process was in jeopardy. The basic patent application, bought by the company from an "outside" inventor two years before, was now known to Patrick, and to several of the senior attorneys in his department, to be a phony, a hoax, a thing discovered to have been created in ghastly jest—by a man in his own department. This was the thing that really got him. He could think of nothing, no way to deal with it. The jester, Paul Bleeker, was the son of Andy Bleeker, his old boss and good friend. (Did anybody have any real friends at this crazy place anymore?) And that was really why he had come up with an answer. It would kill Andy if this got out. Certainly, he and both Bleekers would probably have to resign. After that there would come the slow, crushing hearings of the Committee on Disbarment.

  Problems.

  Was this why he couldn't write, why he couldn't even get started? He blinked, shook his head. Only then did he realize that he was still staring, unseeing at the handwritten notes in front of him.

  He leafed slowly through the scribblings. How long ago had he started the article? Months? Nearly three years ago, in fact. He had wanted to do something comprehensive, to attain some small measure of fame. This was the real reason lawyers wrote. Or was it? Some time soon, he'd have to reexamine this thing, lay bare his real motives. It was just barely conceivable it would be some thing quite unpleasant. He gave a last morose look at the title page. "The College Thesis as Prior Art in Chemical Patent Interferences" and put the papers back in the envelope. He just didn't know how to put this thing back on the rails. Fundamentally he must be just plain lazy.

  But time was wasting. He looked at his wristwatch, put the papers back, closed the drawer, and walked out to the lily pond again.

  It was in the same wet sparkle of sunlight that he remembered his baby daughter, splashing in naked glee that warm summer day so many months ago. Lilas had stood there and called the baby out of the pool to get dressed, for that fatal Saturday afternoon trip to the shopping center. And his daughter had climbed out of the pool, ignored the tiny terry-cloth robe, and dashed dripping wet into her father's arms. At least her front got dried as he held her writhing wetness against his shirt, patting her dancing little bottom with the palm of his hand.

  Slowly he sat down again. It must have been that sunbeam on the pool. It was going to be bad. He began to shudder. He wanted to scream. He bent over and buried his face in his hands. For a time he breathed in noisy rasps. Finally he stood up again, wiped his gray face on the sleeve of his robe, and started back up the garden path to the house. He would have to be on his way to the office. As soon as he got to the office, he would be all right.

  'Tis all a Chequer-board of

  Nights and Days

  Where Destiny with Men

  for Pieces plays . . .

  Omar khayyam

  Patrick sometimes had the impression that he was just a pawn on Alec Cord's chessboard. Cord was always looking seven moves deep, and into a dozen alternate sequences. Patrick sighed. He had long suspected that they were all smarter than he was, certainly each doing his job better than Patrick could do it. It was only the trainees that he could really teach anything anymore, and even here he had to fight to find the time. Nothing about it made sense. The higher you rose in the company, the less you knew about anything, and the more you had to rely on the facts and appraisals developed by people under you. They could make a better patent search than he; they could write a better patent specification, and do it faster; they could draft better and more comprehensive infringement opinions. In a gloomy moment he had wondered whether it was the same way throughout the company, and if so, why had the company nevertheless grown into the Big Ten of the American chemical industry. But he never figured it out.

  He looked up at his lieutenant. "I understand it was the crucial game, in the last round. If you beat Gadsen, you won the tournament, and if he beats you, he won."

  "Didn't realize you followed the sports page, Con," said Alec Cord.

  "Gadsen had white, and opened up with the Ruy Lopez. You defended with Marshall's Counter Gambit. They gave the score in the paper. Somebody said it was identical, move for move, with a game between Marshall and Capablanca in 1918, when Marshall first pulled his gambit on Capablanca."

  "I wouldn't know."

  "That's a surprise. They say you even had an article in Chess Review last year on the Marshall Counter Gambit."

  Cord was silent. Patrick took a new tack. "Gadsen's that Examiner in Group 170, the one handling your Neol cases?"

  "That's right."

  "Including the basic case, the one we know now is the phony? The one our whole Neol plant depends on?"

  "The very one."

  "The one you would have given just about anything, even the Annual D.C. Chess Tournament, for Gadsen to allow?"

  "All right, Con. But it's not what you think. I didn't throw the tournament. And Gadsen didn't throw the allowance. We didn't discuss it at all. I admit I let him win that game, but there wasn't any deal. It would have to occur to him, with no help from me, that there was something he owed me. He could have done it either way, and I'd have had no kick. Maybe he'd have given the allowance anyhow. In fact, for all you know, maybe he allowed the case despite the game, and not because of it."

  "I won't argue the point, Alec. We may never know. Anyhow, the thing I came to see you about is this." He handed the other a legal-sized sheet.

  Cord's eyes widened. "An interference!"

  "So maybe Gadsen allowed the claims just to set you up for an interference."

  "Maybe. But not likely. If he were going to do that, he would have just sent the interference notice, this thing, without the allowance."

  "Any ideas who the other party is?"

  "Probably Du Santo. We've been picking up their foreign patents in the quick-issue countries, like Belgium. We'll know for sure after the inventors file their preliminary statements. Which brings me to the next question: How can we file a preliminary statement sworn to by a phony inventor who doesn't even exist?"

  "I don't know. I want you to figure out something after we talk to Paul Bleeker."

  "Take it from the beginning, Paul" said Patrick.

  Paul Bleeker's face rippled with misery.

  Cord said: "Maybe I'd better go."

  "Stay put," said Patrick shortly. "Paul, you understand why we have to have Alec in on this. You're emotionally involved. You might not be able to do what has to be done. Alec has to listen to everything, so he and I together can plan what to do. You trust him, don't you?"

  The young man nodded.

  "It began as sort of a joke . . . ?" prompted Patrick.

  "Yes; a joke," said Paul. "When I was a freshman in law school. Harvey Jayne and those others were teasing Dad. That was when Dad was still Director of the Research Division, bef
ore they promoted him."

  The light was dawning. Patrick sat up. "They were teasing him about the Research Division?"

  "Yes, then Mr. Jayne said Dad's Research Division was essential, but only to verify outside inventions he bought."

  "So you decided to booby trap Mr. Jayne?"

  "Yes."

  "You then wrote those patent attorneys in Washington?"

  "Yes, I mailed them the examples for the patent application. They took them and changed them around a little bit, the same way we do here in the Patent Department. They added the standard gobbledygook at the front, and eight or ten claims at the back. They sent the final draft back to me for execution. The standard procedure. They sent me a bill for three hundred dollars. I paid that out of the money Mr. Jayne sent them, when he bought the invention. I still have the rest—four thousand and seven hundred dollars. I haven't spent any of it." He looked uncertainly at Patrick. "You won't tell Dad about this, will you?"

  "Certainly not." Patrick looked at him with genuine curiosity.

  "But how were you able to make the oath? What notary would notarize the signature of 'Percy B. Shelley'?"

  "Absolutely any, Con. They all just assume you are who you say you are, so long as you pay the fee."

  Patrick was momentarily shaken. "But that's the whole idea of notarizing to make the inventor swear he's truly the inventor, the person named in the oath."

  Cord smiled faintly. "Not all notaries waive identification, Con."

  "Well," said Patrick, "now we've committed perjury, sworn falsely to the United States Patent Office. So far, all they can do to you, Paul, besides disbarring you, followed by imprisonment in the federal penitentiary, is to strike your Shelley case from the files in the Patent Office."