A Plague of Demons

by Keith Laumer

  I stopped in front of the panel, punched keys one, seven, four, and two. Machinery whirred. A box popped into view. Through the quarter-inch armorplast, I could see a thick manila envelope. The proper code would cause the transparent panel to slide up-but unfortunately Felix hadn't had time to give it to me.

  I took another look both ways, lifted the nut-hammer from my pocket, and slammed it against the plastic. It made a hell of a loud noise; a faint mark appeared on the panel. I set myself, hit it again as hard as I could. The plastic shattered. I poked the sharp fragments in, got my fingers on the envelope, pulled it out through the jagged opening. I could hear a bell starting up inside the building. Nearer at hand, a red light above the door blinked furiously. It was unfortunate-but a risk I had had to take. I tucked the envelope away, turned, took two steps A loping dog-shape rounded the corner, galloped silently toward me. I turned; a second was angling across the street at a dead run. Far down the street, two pedestrians sauntered on their ways, oblivious of what was happening. There was no one else in sight. A third demon appeared at an alley mouth across the street, trotted directly toward me, sharp ears erect, skull-face smiling.

  There was a dark delivery-van at the curb. I leaped to it, tried the door-locked. I doubled my fist, smashed the glass, got the door open. The nearest demon broke into an awkward gallop.

  I slid into the seat, twisted the key, accelerated from the curb as the thing leaped. It struck just behind the door, clung for a moment, and fell off. I steered for the one in the street ahead, saw it dodge aside at the last instant-just too late. There was a heavy shock; the car veered. I caught it, rounded a corner on two wheels, steering awkwardly with one hand. The gyros screeched their protest as I zigzagged, missed another dog-thing coming up fast, then straightened out and roared off along the street, past stores, a service station, houses, then open fields. Blood was running from my knuckles, trickling under my sleeve.

  There was a clump of dark trees ahead, growing down almost to the edge of the road. A little farther on, the polyarcs of a major expressway intermix gleamed across the dark prairie. I caught a glimpse of a roadside sign:

  ***

  CAUTION-KANSAS 199-1/4 MI.

  SW. AUTODRIVE 100 YDS.

  MANDATORY ABOVE 100 MPH

  I braked quickly, passed the blue glare sign that indicated the pickup point for the state autodrive system, squealed to a stop fifty yards beyond it. I switched the drive lever to AUTO, set the cruise control on MAXLEG, jumped out, reached back in to flick the van into gear. It started off, came quickly up to speed, jerkily corrected course as it crossed the system monitor line. I watched it as it swung off into the banked curve ahead, accelerating rapidly; then I climbed an ancient wire fence, stumbled across a snow-scattered ploughed field and into the shelter of the trees.

  ***

  Excitement, I was discovering, wasn't good for my ailment. I had another attack of nausea that left me pale, trembling, empty as a looted house, and easily strong enough to sort out a stamp collection. I swayed on all fours, smelling leaf-mold and frozen bark, hearing a distant croak of tree-frogs, the faraway wail of a horn.

  The demons had laid a neat trap for me. They had watched, followed my movements-probably from the time I left the ship-waiting for the time to close in. For the moment, I had confused them. For all their power, they seemed to lack the ability to counter the unexpected-the human ability to improvise in an emergency, to act on impulse.

  My trick with the van had gained me a few minutes' respite-but nothing more. Alerted police would bring the empty vehicle to a halt within a mile or two; then a cordon would close in, beating every thicket, until they found me.

  Meanwhile, I had time enough to take a look at whatever it was that I had come five thousand miles to collect-the thing Felix had guarded with the last fragment of his will. I took the envelope from an inner pocket, tore off one end. A two-inch-square wafer of translucent polyon slipped into my hand. In the faint starlight, I could see a pattern of fine wires and vari-colored beads embedded in the material. I turned it over, smelled it, shook it, held it to my ear "Identify yourself," a tiny voice said.

  I jumped, held the thing on my palm to stare at it, then cautiously put it to my ear again.

  "You now have sixty seconds in which to identify yourself," the voice said. "Fifty-eight seconds and counting…"

  I held the rectangle to my mouth.

  "Bravais," I said. "John Bravais, CBI SA-0654."

  I listened again:

  "… fifty-two; fifty-one; fifty…"

  I talked to it some more.

  "… forty-four; forty-three; forty-two…"

  Talking to it wasn't getting me anywhere. How the hell did you identify yourself to a piece of plastic the size of a book of matches? Fingerprints? A National Geographic Society membership card?

  I pulled out my CBI card, held it to the plastic, then listened again:

  "… thirty-one; thirty…" There was a pause. "In the absence of proper identification within thirty seconds, this plaque will detonate. Unauthorized personnel are warned to withdraw to fifty yards… Twenty seconds and counting. Nineteen; eighteen…"

  I had my arm back, ready to throw. I checked the motion. The blast would attract everything within a mile, from flying saucer watchers to red-eyed beast-shapes that loped on hands like a man's, and I would have lost my one ace in a game where the stakes were more than life and death… I hesitated, looked at the ticking bomb in my hand. "Thinking caps, children," I whispered aloud. "Thinking caps, thinking caps…"

  Talking to it was no good. ID cards with built-in molecular patterns for special scanners meant nothing to it. It had to be something simple, something Felix hadn't had time to tell me…

  A signal had to be transmitted. I had nothing-except an array of gimmicks built into my teeth by Felix There was a spy-eye detector that would set up a sharp twinge in my left upper canine under any radiation on the spy band; the right lower incisor housed a CBI emergency band receiver; in my right lower third molar, there was a miniature radar pulser A transmitter. Just possibly-if there was still time. I jammed the plague to my ear:

  "… ten seconds and counting. Nine-"

  With my tongue, I pushed aside the protective cap on the tooth, bit down. There was a sour taste of galvanic action as the contacts closed, a tingle as an echo bounced back from metal somewhere out across the night. I pulsed again; if that hadn't done it, nothing would.

  I cocked my arm to throw the thing But if I did-and it failed to explode-I would never find it again in the dark, not in time. And it was too late to drop it and run… not that I had anything left to run with. I gritted my teeth, held the thing to my head…

  "… two…" The pause seemed to go on and on. "You are recognized," the voice said crisply. "You are now seven hundred and thirty-two yards north-northeast of the station."

  I felt a pang of emotion in which relief and regret mingled. Now the chase would go on; there would be no rest for me. Not yet…

  I got to my feet, took a bearing on the north star, and set off through the trees.

  ***

  I came out of the woods onto an unsurfaced track, went through a ditch choked with stiff, waist-high weeds, scraped myself getting over a rotting wire fence. There were headlights on the highway now, swinging off onto the side road, and other lights coming out from Coffeyville. The patch of woods would be the obvious first place to search. In another five minutes, the hunters would be emerging on the spot where I now stood ankle-deep in the clods of a stubbled cornfield. I couldn't tell what was on the far side; my night vision was long gone. I broke into a shambling run, across the frozen furrows, tripping at every third step, falling often. The thudding of my heart was almost drowned by the roaring in my head.

  Something low and dark lay across my path-the ruins of a row of sheds. I angled off to skirt them, and slammed full-tilt into a fence, sending fragments of rotted wood flying as I sprawled. I sat up, put the wafer to my ear.

  "�
�� six hundred twenty-two yards, bearing two-oh-seven," the calm voice said. I struggled up, picked my way past the rusted hulk of a tractor abandoned under the crabbed branches of a dead apple tree. I came back into the open, broke into a run across a grassy stretch that had probably been a pasture forty years earlier. Faint light fell across the ground ahead; my shadow bobbed, swung aside, and disappeared. Cars were maneuvering, closing in on the woodlot behind me. Fence posts loomed up ahead; I slowed, jumped a tangle of fallen wires, ran on across another field, plowed by the auto-tillers months before but never planted.

  The suffocating sensation of oxygen starvation burned in my chest; I hadn't thought to charge my storage units. I drew a long painful breath, brought the plastic rectangle up to my head as I ran.

  "… yards, bearing two one two… four hundred and fifty-four yards, bearing two one three…"

  I corrected course to the right, plunged down a slight slope, crashed through a dense growth of brush, went knee-deep into half-frozen muck, sending skim-ice tinkling. Dry stalks broke under my hand as I clawed my way up an embankment; then I was up again, running with feet that seemed to be cased in concrete.

  A dirt road crossed my path ahead at a slight angle. I leaped a ditch, followed the track as it curved, and crossed another. A grove of massive dark trees came into view well off to my right-century-old patriarchs, standing alone. I came to a gasping halt, listened to check my position: "… one hundred eighteen yards, bearing two seven five…" I left the road, ran for the distant trees.

  A tall frame house with a collapsed roof leaned in the shelter of the grove. Vacant windows looked blindly out across the dark field. I went past it, past a fallen barn, the remains of outbuildings. "… one yard, bearing two five two…"

  And there was nothing; not so much as a marker stone or a dry bush. Standing alone in the frozen field, shivering now with the bitter cold, I could hear the approaching feet clearly now-more than one set of them.

  I turned to face them, taking deep breaths to charge my air banks. I tried to blink the fog from my eyes. It would be over in another minute; I would try to kill at least one more of them before those bony snouts found my throat…

  I started to toss the useless plaque aside, but on impulse put it to my ear instead.

  "-rectly above the entry; please re-identify… You are now directly above the entry; please re-identify… You are now-"

  I groped with my tongue, bit down on the tooth. Nothing happened. Through the darkness, I saw a movement among the scattered trees. Near at hand, there was a soft hum, a grating sound. Directly before me, dirt stirred; a polished cylinder a yard across, dirt-topped, emerged from the earth, rose swiftly to a height of six feet. With a click! a panel slid back, exposing an unlighted and featureless interior. I stepped inside. The panel slid shut. I felt the cylinder start down. It sank, sank, slowed, halted. I leaned against the curving wall, fighting off the dizziness. The panel slid aside; and I stumbled out into warmth and silence.

  Chapter Ten

  I was in a small, softly-lit room with a polished floor, warm to the touch, and walls that were a jumble of ancient, varnished oak cabinet-work, gray-painted equipment housings, instrument panels, indicator lights, and controls resembling those of a Tri-D starship. Exposed wiring and conduit crisscrossed the panels; a vast wall clock with fanciful roman numerals and elaborate hands said ten minutes past ten. There was a faint hum of recycling air. I groped my way to a high-backed padded chair, moaned a few times just to let my arm know that it had my sympathy. I looked around at the fantastic room. It was like nothing I had ever seen-except for a remote resemblance to Felix's underground laboratory in Tamboula. I felt an urge to laugh hysterically as I thought of the things up above, prowling the ground now, converging on the spot from which I had miraculously disappeared. How long would it be before they started to dig? The urge to laugh died.

  I closed my eyes, gathered my forces, such as they were, and keened my hearing.

  Rustling sounds in the earth all about me; the slow grind of the earthworm, the frantic scrabble, pause, scrabble of the burrowing mole, the soft, tentative creak of the questing root…

  I tuned, reaching out.

  Wind moaned in the trees, and their branches creaked, complaining; dry stalks rustled, clashing dead stems; soft footfalls thump-thumped, crossing the field above me. There was the growl of a turbine, coming closer, the grate of tires in soft earth. A door slammed, feet clumped.

  "It did not come this way," a flat voice said. Something gibbered-a sound that turned my spine to ice.

  "It is sick and weak," the first voice said. "It is only a man. It did not come this way. It is not here."

  More of the breathy gobbling; I could almost see the skull-face, the grinning mouth, the rag-tongue moving as it commanded the man-shaped slave standing before it…

  "It is not here," the humanoid said. "I will return to my post in the village."

  Now the gabble was angry, insistent.

  "It is not logical," the toneless voice said. "It went another way. The other units will find it."

  Other footsteps had come close. Someone walked across my grave…

  "There is no man here," another dull voice stated. "I am going back now."

  Two beast-things gibbered together.

  "You let it escape you at the village," a lifeless voice replied. "That was not in accordance with logic."

  The argument went on, twenty feet above my hidden sanctuary.

  "… a factor that we cannot compute," a dead voice stated. "To remain here is unintelligent." Footsteps tramped away. The car door clattered open, slammed; a turbine growled into life; tires crunched the hard earth, going away.

  Soft feet paced above me. Two of the creatures, possibly three, crossed and recrossed the area. I could hear them as they conferred. Then two stalked away, while the third settled down heavily to wait.

  ***

  I took out my talking plastic rectangle and put it to my ear.

  "… now in Survival Station Twelve," the precise voice was saying. "Place this token in the illuminated slot on the station monitor panel." There was a pause. "You are now in Survival Station Twelve…"

  Across the room, there was a recessed scroll-worked console dimly lit by a yellow glare strip. I wavered across to it, found the lighted slot, pressed the wafer into it, then leaned against a chair, waiting. Things clicked and hummed; a white light snapped on, giving the room a cheery, clinical look, like a Victorian parlor where a corpse was laid out. There was a preparatory buzz, matching the humming in my head; then:

  "This is your Station Monitor," a deep voice said. "The voice you hear is a speech-construct, capable of verbalizing computer findings. The unit is also capable of receiving programming instruction verbally. Please speak distinctly and unambiguously. Do not employ slang or unusual constructions. Avoid words having multiple connotations…"

  The room seemed to fade and brighten, swaying like a cable-car in a high wind. I was beginning to learn the signs; I would black out in a few seconds. I looked around for a soft place to fall, while the voice droned on. Abruptly it broke off. Then:

  "Emergency override!" it said sharply. "Sensing instruments indicate you require immediate medical attention." There was a sound behind me; I turned. As if in a dream, I saw a white-sheeted cot deploy from a wall recess, roll across the room, hunting a little, then come straight on and stop beside me.

  "Place yourself on the cot, with your head at the equipment end." The voice echoed from far away.

  I made a vast effort, pushed myself clear of the chair, fell across the bed. I was struggling to get myself on it when I felt a touch, twisted to see padded, jointed arms grasp me and gently but firmly hoist me up and lay me out, face down. The sheet was smooth and cool under my face.

  "You will undergo emergency diagnosis and treatment," the voice said. "An anesthetic will be administered if required. Do not be alarmed."

  I caught just one whiff of neopolyform; then I was relaxing,
letting it all go, sliding down a long, smooth slope into dark sea.

  ***

  Two bosomy angels with hands like perfumed flower petals were massaging my weary limbs and crooning love songs in my ears, while not far away someone was cooking all my favorite dishes, making savory smells that put just that perfect edge on my appetite.

  The cloud I was lying on was floating in sunshine, somewhere far from any conceivable discord, and I lay with my eyes closed, and blissfully enjoyed it. I deserved a rest, I realized vaguely, after all I'd gone through-whatever that was. It didn't seem important. I started to reach out to pat one of the angels, but it was really too much trouble…

  There was a twinge from my left arm. I almost remembered something unpleasant, but it eluded me. The arm pained again, more sharply; there seemed to be only one angel now, and she was working me over in a businesslike way, ignoring my efforts to squirm free. The music had ended and the cook had quit and gone home. I must have slept right through the meal; my stomach had a hollow, unloved feeling. That angel was getting rougher all the time; maybe she wasn't an angel after all; possibly she was a real live Swedish masseuse, one of those slender, athletic blonde ones you see in the pictonews Ouch! Slender, hell. This one must have weighed in at a good two-fifty, and not an ounce of fat on her. What she was doing to my arm might be good for the muscle tone, but it was distinctly uncomfortable. I'd have to tell her so-just as soon as this drowsy feeling that was settling over me went away…

  It had been a long trip, and the jogging of the oxcart was getting me down. I could feel burlap against my face; probably a bag of potatoes, from the feel of the lumps. I tried to shift to a more comfortable position, but all I could find were hard floorboards and sharp corners. I had caught my arm under one of the latter; there must have been a nail in it; it caught, and scraped, and the more I pulled away the more it hurt My eyes came open and I was staring at a low, gray-green ceiling perforated with tiny holes in rows, with glare strips set every few feet. There were sounds all around: busy hummings and clicks and clatters.