Operation Chaos

by Poul Anderson

  "The trouble is," Barney said, "you want us to cancel contracts we've signed and taken money for. You want us to break our word and let down those who trust us."

  His joy dropped from Marmiadon. He drew himself to his full meager height, looked hard and straight at us, and stated: "These soldiers of the Holy Spirit demand that you stop making equipment for the armed forces, oppressors abroad, and for the police, oppressors at home. Nothing more is asked of you at this time, and nothing less. The question is not negotiable."

  "I see. I didn't expect anything else," Barney said. "But I wanted to put the situation in plain language before witnesses. Now I'm going to warn you."

  Those who heard whispered to the rest, a hissing from mouth to mouth. I saw tension mount anew.

  "If you employ violence upon those who came simply to remonstrate," Marmiadon declared, "they will either have the law upon you, or see final proof that the law is a creature of the vested interests . . . which I tell you in turn are the creatures of Satan."

  "Oh, no, no," Barney answered. "We're mild sorts, whether you believe it or not. But you are trespassing. You have interfered with our work to the point where we're delayed and shorthanded. We must carry on as best we can, trying to meet our contractual obligations. We're about to run an experiment. You could be endangered. Please clear the grounds for your own safety.'

  Marmiadon grew rigid. "If you think you can get away with a deadly spell-"

  "Nothing like. I'll tell you precisely what we have in mind. We're thinking about a new method of transporting liquid freight. Before going further, we have to run a safety check on it. If the system fails, unprotected persons could be hurt." Barney raised his volume, though we knew some of the police officers would have owls' ears tuned in. "I order you, I warn you, I beg you to stop trespassing, and get off company properly. You have half an hour.

  We wheeled and were back inside before the noise broke loose. Curses, taunts, obscenities, and animal howls followed us down the halls until we reached the blessed isolation of the main alchemy lab.

  The dozen scientists, technicians, and blue-collar men whom Barney had picked out of the volunteers to stay with him, were gathered there. They sat smoking, drinking coffee brewed on Bunsen burners, talking in low voices. When we entered, a small cheer came from them. They'd watched the confrontation on a closed-loop ball. I sought out Ike Abrams, the warehouse foreman. Ever since we soldiered together, I'd known him as a good man, and had gotten him his job here. "All in order?" I asked.

  He made a swab-O sign. "By me, Cap'n, she's clear and on green. I can't wait."

  I considered him for a second. "You really have it in for those characters, don't you?"

  "In my position, wouldn't you?" He looked as if he were about to spit.

  In your position, I thought, or in any of a lot of other positions, but especially in yours, Ike-yes.

  As a rationalist, I detested the irrationality at the heart of Gnosticism. Were I a devout Christian, I'd have more counts against the Johannine Church: its claim to be the successor of all others, denying them any further right to exist; worse, probably, its esotericism, that would deny God's grace to nearly the whole of mankind. Rationalist and religionist alike could revolt against its perversion of the Gospel According to St. John, perhaps the most beautiful and gentle if the most mystical book in Holy Writ.

  But if you were Jewish, the Johnnies would pluck out of context and throw at you texts like "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist." You would see reviving around you the ancient nightmare of anti-Semitism.

  A little embarrassed, I turned to Bill Hardy, our chief paracelsus, who sat swinging his legs from a lab bench. "How much stuff did you produce?" I asked.

  "About fifty gallons," he said, pointing.

  "Wow! With no alchemy?"

  "Absolutely not. Pure, honest-to-Berzelius molecular interaction. I admit we were lucky to have a large supply of the basic ingredients on hand."

  I winced, recalling the awful sample he'd whipped up when our scheme was first discussed. "How on Midgard did that happen?"

  "Well, the production department is?was?filling some big orders," he said. "For instance, a dairy chain wanted a lot of rancidity preventers. You know the process, inhibit the reaction you don't want in a test tube, and cast a sympathetic spell to get the same effect in ton lots of your product. Then the government is trying to control the skunk population in the Western states, and?" He broke off as Ginny came in.

  Her eyes glistened. She held her wand like a Valkyrie's sword. "We're set, boys." The words clanged.

  "Let's go." Barney heaved his bulk erect. We followed him to the containers. They were ordinary flat one-gallon cans such as you buy paint thinner in, but Solomon's seal marked the wax that closed each screw top and I could subliminally feel the paranatural forces straining around them. It seemed out of keeping for the scientists to load them on a cart and trundle them off.

  Ike and his gang went with me to my section. The apparatus I'd thrown together didn't look especially impressive either. In fact, it was a haywire monstrosity of coils and wires enclosing a big gasoline-driven electric generator. Sometimes you need more juice for an experiment than the carefully screened public power lines can deliver.

  To cobble that stuff on, I'd have to remove the generator's own magnetic screens. Therefore, what we had was a mass of cold free iron; no spell would work in its immediate vicinity. Ike had been in his element this afternoon, mounting the huge weight and awkward bulk on wheels for me. He was again, now, as he directed it along the halls and skidded it over the stairs.

  No doubt he sometimes wished people had never found how to degauss the influences that had held paranatural forces in check since the Bronze Age ended. He wasn't Orthodox; his faith didn't prohibit him having anything whatsoever to do with goetics. But neither was he Reform or Neo-Chassidic. He was a Conservative Jew, who could make use of objects that others had put under obedience but who mustn't originate any cantrips himself. It's a tribute to him that he was nonetheless a successful and popular foreman.

  He'd rigged a husky block-and-tackle arrangement in the garage. The others had already flitted to the flat roof. Ginny had launched the canisters from there. They bobbed about in the air, out of range of the magnetic distortions caused by the generator when we hoisted its iron to their level. Barney swung the machine around until we could ease it down beside the skylight. That made it impossible for us to rise on brooms or a word. We joined our friends via rope ladder.

  "Ready?" Barney asked. In the restless pale glow, I saw sweat gleam on his face. If this failed, he'd be responsible for unforeseeable consequences.

  I checked the connections. "Yeah, nothing's come loose. But let me first have a look around."

  I joined Ginny at the parapet. Beneath us roiled the mob, faces and placards turned upward to hate us. They had spied the floating containers and knew a climax was at hand. Behind his altar, Initiate Marmiadon worked at what I took to be reinforcement of his defensive field. Unknown phrases drifted to me: ". . . Heliphomar Mabon Saruth Gefutha Enunnas Sacinos . . ." above the sullen mumble of our besiegers.

  The elflight flickered brighter. The air seethed and crackled with energies. I caught a thunderstorm whiff of ozone.

  My darling wore a slight, wistful smile. "How Svartalf would love this," she said.

  Barney lumbered to our side. "Might as well start," he said. "I'll give them one last chance." He shouted the same warning as before. Yells drowned him out. Rocks and offal flew against our walls. "Okay," he growled. "Let 'er rip!"

  I went back to the generator and started the motor, leaving the circuits open. It stuttered and shivered. The vile fumes made me glad we'd escaped depending on internal combustion engines. I've seen automobiles, as they were called, built around 1900, shortly before the first broomstick flights. Believe me, museums are where they belong-a chamber of horrors, to b
e exact.

  Ginny's clear call snapped my attention back. She'd directed the canisters into position. I could no longer see them, for they floated ten feet over the heads of the crowd, evenly spaced. She made a chopping gesture with her wand. I threw the main switch.

  No, we didn't use spells to clear Nornwell's property. We used the absence of spells. The surge of current through the coils on the generator threw out enough magnetism to cancel every charm, ours and theirs alike, within a hundred-yard radius.

  We'd stowed whatever gear might be damaged in safe conductive-shell rooms. We'd repeatedly cautioned the mob that we were about to experiment with the transportation of possibly dangerous liquids. No law required us to add that these liquids were in super-pressurized cans which were bound to explode and spray their contents the moment that the wall-strengthening force was annulled.

  We'd actually exaggerated the hazard . . . in an attempt to avoid any slightest harm to trespassers. Nothing vicious was in those containers. Whatever might be slightly toxic was present in concentrations too small to matter, although a normal sense of smell would give ample warning regardless. Just a harmless mixture of materials like butyl mercaptan, butyric acid, methanethiol, skatole, cadaverine, putrescine ... well, yes, the organic binder did have penetrative properties; if you got a few drops on your skin, the odor wouldn't disappear for a week or two . . .

  The screams reached me first. I had a moment to gloat. Then the stench arrived. I'd forgotten to don my gas mask, and even when I'm human my nose is quite sensitive. The slight whiff I got sent me gasping and retching backward across the roof. It was skunk, it was spoiled butter, it was used asparagus, it was corruption and doom and the wheels of juggernaut lubricated with Limburger cheese, it was beyond imagining. I barely got my protection on in time.

  "Poor dear. Poor Steve." Ginny held me close.

  "Are they gone?" I sputtered.

  "Yes. Along with the policemen and, if we don't get busy, half this postal district."

  I relaxed. The uncertain point in our plan had been whether the opposition would break or would come through our now undefended doors in search of our lives. After my experience I didn't see how the latter would have been possible. Our chemists had builded better than they knew.

  We need hardly expect a return visit, I thought in rising glee. If you suffer arrest or a broken head for the Cause, you're a hero who inspires others. But if you merely acquire for a while a condition your best friends won't tell you about because they can't come within earshot of you-hasn't the Cause taken a setback?

  I grabbed Ginny to me and started to kiss her. Damn, I'd forgotten my gas mask again! She disentangled our snouts. "I'd better help Barney and the rest hex away those molecules before they spread," she told me. "Switch off your machine and screen it."

  "Uh, yes," I must agree. "We want our staff returning to work in the morning."

  What with one thing and another, we were busy for a couple of hours. After we finished, Barney produced some bottles, and the celebration lasted till well nigh dawn. The eastern sky blushed pink when Ginny and I wobbled aboard our broom and hiccoughed, "Home, James."

  The air blew cool, heaven reached high. "Know something?" I said over my, shoulder. "I love you."

  "Purr-rr-rr." She leaned forward to rub her cheek against mine. Her hands wandered.

  "Shameless hussy," I said.

  "You prefer some other kind?" she asked.

  "Well, no," I said "but you might wait a while. Here I am in front of you, feeling more lecherous every minute but without any way to lech."

  "Oh, there are ways," she murmured dreamily. "On a broomstick yet. Have you forgotten?"

  "No. But dammit, the local airlanes are going to be crowded with commuter traffic pretty soon, and I'd rather not fly several miles looking for solitude when we've got a perfectly good bedroom nearby."

  "Right. I like that thought. Only fifteen minutes away, in the privacy of your own home?Pour on the coal, James."

  The stick accelerated.

  I was full of glory and the glory that was her. She caught the paranatural traces first. My indication was that her head lifted from between my shoulder blades, her arms loosened around my waist while the finger nails bit through my shirt. "What the Moloch?" I exclaimed.

  "Hsh!" she breathed. We flew in silence through the thin chill dawn wind. The city spread darkling beneath us. Her voice came at last, tense, but some how dwindled and lost:-"I said I didn't like the scent of the time-stream. In the excitement and everything, I forgot."

  My guts crawled, as if I were about to turn wolf. Senses and extrasenses strained forth. I've scant thaumaturgic skill-the standard cantrips, plus a few from the Army and more from engineering training but a lycanthrope has inborn instincts and awarenesses. Presently I also knew.

  Dreadfulness was about.

  As we flitted downward, we knew that it was in our house.

  We left the broomstick on the front lawn. I turned my key in the door and hurled myself through. "Val!" I yelled into the dim rooms. "Svartalf!"

  No lock had been forced or picked, no glass had been broken, the steel and stone guarding every paranatural entry were unmoved. But chairs lay tumbled, vases smashed where they had fallen off shaken tables, blood was spattered over walls, floors, carpets, from end to end of the building.

  We stormed into Valeria's room. When we saw that little shape quietly asleep in her crib, we held each other and wept.

  Finally Ginny could ask, "Where's Svartalf? What happened?"

  "I'll look around," I said. "He gave an epic account of himself, at least."

  "Yes-" She wiped her eyes. As she looked around the wreckage in the nursery, that green gaze hardened. She stared down into the crib. "Why didn't you wake up?" she said in a tone I'd never heard before.

  I was already on my way to search. I found Svartalf in the kitchen. His blood had about covered the linoleum. In spite of broken bones, tattered hide, belly gashed open, the breath rattled faintly in and out of him. Before I could examine the damage further, a shriek brought me galloping back to Ginny.

  She held the child. Blue eyes gazed dully at me from under tangled gold curls. Ginny's face, above, was drawn so tight it seemed the skin must rip on the cheekbones. "Something's wrong with her," she told me. "I can't tell what, but something's wrong.'

  I stood for an instant feeling my universe break apart. Then I went into the closet. Dusk was giving place to day, and I needed darkness. I shucked my outer clothes and used my flash. Emerging, I went to those two female figures. My wolf nose drank their odors.

  I sat on my haunches and howled.

  Ginny laid down what she was holding. She stayed completely motionless by the crib while I changed back.

  "I'll call the police," I heard my voice, say to her. "That thing isn't Val. It isn't even human."

  XXIII

  I TAKE CARE not to remember the next several hours in detail.

  At noon we were in my study. Our local chief had seen almost at once that the matter was beyond him and urged us to call in the FBI. Their technicians were still busy checking the house and grounds, inch by inch. Our best service was to stay out of their way. I sat on the day bed, Ginny on the edge of my swivel chair. From time to time one of us jumped up, paced around, made an inane remark, and slumped back down. The air was fogged with smoke from ashtray, overflowing cigarets. My skull felt scooped out. Her eyes had retreated far back into her head. Sunlight, grass, trees were unreal in the windows.

  "You really ought to eat," I said for the ?-th time. "Keep your strength."

  "Same to you," she answered, not looking at me or at anything I could tell.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "Nor I."

  We returned to the horror.

  The extension phone yanked us erect. "A call from Dr. Ashman," it said. "Do you wish to answer?"

  "For God's sake yell" ripped from me. "Visual." Momentarily, crazily, I couldn't concentrate on our first message from the man who b
rought Valerie into the world. My mind spun off into the principles of telephony. Sympathetic vibrations, when sender and receiver are spelled to the same number; a scrying unit for video when desired; a partial animation to operate the assembly?Ginny's hand seized mine. Its cold shocked me into sanity.

  Ashman's face looked well-nigh as exhausted as hers. "Virginia," he said. "Steve. We have the report."

  I tried to respond and couldn't.

  "You were right," he went on. "It's a homunculus."

  "What took you so long?" Ginny asked. Her voice wasn't husky any more, just hoarse and harsh.

  "Unprecedented case," Ashman said. "Fairy changelings have always been considered a legend. Nothing in our data suggests any motive for nonhuman intelligences to steal a child . . . nor any method by which they could if they wanted to, assuming the parents take normal care . . . and certainly no reason for such hypothetical kidnappers to leave a sort of golem in its place. " He sighed. "Apparently we know less than we believe."

  "What are your findings?" The restored determination in Ginny's words brought my gaze to her.

  "The police chirurgeon, the crime lab staff, and later a pathologist from the University hospital worked with me," Ashman told us. "Or I with them. I was merely the family doctor. We lost hours on the assumption Valerie was bewitched. The simulacrum is excellent, understand. It's mindless?the EEG is practically flat?but it resembles your daughter down fingerprints. Not till she ... it ... had failed to respond to every therapeutic spell we commanded between us, did we think the body might be an imitation. You told us so at the outset, Steve, but we discounted that as hysteria. I'm sorry. Proof required a whole battery of tests. For instance, the saline content and PBI suggest the makers of the homunculus had no access to oceans. We clinched the matter when we injected some radioactivated holy water; that metabolism is not remotely human."

  His dry tone was valuable. The horror began to have some shadowy outline; my brain creaked into motion, searching for ways to grapple it. "What'll they do with the changeling?" I asked.