A Plague of Demons

by Keith Laumer

  ***

  The planet had set, and I rested with the remnant of my detachment in a narrow ravine, watching the flash of distant fire against the glitter of the black sky.

  "I spoke wi' Bermuez but now," my Elizabethan comrade said. "His bullies are hard-pressed. Can't we to their relief, an't please ye, milord?"

  "Sorry, Thomas; our job is to survive, as long as we can, and go on fighting."

  "Where will't end? Stap me, 'tis as strange a maze as ever mortal man did tread!"

  "I don't know; but as long as we're alive-and free-there's still a chance."

  "The rogues o'ernumber us a thousand to our one; we'll but drown in a sea of 'em."

  "Hold hard, there, mates," a Yankee seaman cut in. "Time to wear ship again, 'pears to me! Here comes Ben splittin' his skys'ls!"

  I felt the vibration transmitted through the rock by hammering treads as the returning scout descended from the heights. He careened into view in the narrow way, braked to a halt in a shower of rock-chips.

  "It's like you thought, Cap'n: we're flanked left and right-surrounded again," the Confederate cavalaryman reported. "The other boys ain't much better off. Doubtsby's in a running fight to the southwest of us; he's lost fourteen men, and they're pushin' him hard. He's managed to pick up six recruits, but got no time to brief 'em. Joel's holed up in a small crater twenty mile north o' here; only twenty of his party got through, but he's picked up a bunch of new men, and he's freein' 'em as fast as he can. Bermuez is in trouble; he's surrounded, and takin' a poundin'; dunno how many he's lost."

  "What are our chances of picking off some new men from here?"

  "Too fur, Cap'n. I tried from the highest spot I could get to, and couldn't poke through the noise. The enemy's clamped down some kind o' rule agin' talkin', too; I think they're catchin' on that we been hearin' everythin' they say."

  "What's the country like to the west of here, Ben?"

  "Flat, mostly; a few bad draws. But they's heavy enemy concentration thataway."

  My shrunken force of thirty units listened silently to the scout's report.

  "We're losin'," someone said.

  "The dropsy drown the hagseed," Thomas growled. "The devil take 'em by inchmeal."

  I called for their attention. "So far we've had the advantage of surprise," I said. "We've hit and run, done the unexpected; they've milled around us like a herd of buffalo. We've managed to slice through them, pick off a few isolated units, capture a few more. But the honeymoon is about over. They're standing off out of take-over range, and they've imposed communications silence, so we don't know what they're planning. They've caught onto the idea of flexible retreat before an inferior force, and they've contained two of our four detachments; three, if you count us. And it looks as though Doubtsby's not much better off."

  "Like I said: we're losin'."

  "Will we huddle here to be burned in our hall like Eric's men?" Aethelbert boomed. "Is this the tenth deed I'll relate to Thor in his mead-hall in Asgard?"

  "We got to bust out of here," a Sixth Armored man said. "And fast, what I mean."

  "We can keep hitting and running-and lose a few men each time," I went on. "In the end we'll be wiped out."

  "In the name of the One God, let us carry the fight to the legions of Shaitan!"

  "For the honor of the gods, I say attack!"

  "We'll attack, but it will be a feint. Thomas, you'll take twenty-seven units, and move out to the south. Don't close; cruise their line at extreme range, as though you were looking for a weak spot. Put two of your best probemen on scan for recruits; you may be able to pick off a unit here and there. Keep up defensive fire only; if you draw out a pursuit column, fall back on this position, and try to capture them."

  "Twenty-seven units say ye, sir? What of the others?"

  "I'm taking two men. When you reach a point close to a two-seven-oh heading from here-turn and hit their line with everything you've got. That will be my signal to move out."

  "Wi' two men only? By'r lakin, they'll trounce ye like a stockfish!"

  "We'll come out with screens down, ports closed, and mingle with the enemy. In the confusion, I'm counting on their assuming we're loyal slaves. As soon as you see we're in their lines, turn and run for it. Keep them busy. With luck, we'll get through."

  "And where would you be goin'?" an Irish voice demanded.

  "Their headquarters is about twelve miles west of here. I'm going to try to reach it."

  "And what will you do when you get there? I see no-"

  "Avaunt, ye pied ninny! Would ye doubt our captain's wit?"

  "Not I! But-"

  "Then let be! Aye, Captain! We'll bear up and board 'em. We'll do our appointed office for stale, and putter out at three for one ye'll treble us o'er."

  "To which of us falls the honor of your escort?" someone called.

  A vast machine rumbled forward. "Who would take Aethelbert's place will fight for it!"

  "Ye wouldn't think of tryin' it without me, Cap'n?" the scout Ben called.

  "Ben and Aethelbert it is," I said. "Thomas, are you ready?"

  "We'll go upright wi' our carriage, fear not, Cap'n! Now we'll avoid i' the instant."

  "All right," I said. "Good luck to all of us; we'll need it."

  ***

  With my two companions beside me, I waited at the south end of the ravine, watching the distant dust cloud that was Thomas' force as it raced across the starlit desert, the flickering of enemy guns lighting the scene with a winking radiance of blue and red and white.

  "He'll be turning to hit them any minute," I said. "Remember the drill: communications silence, screens down, ports closed. If we're fired on, take evasive action, but don't return it."

  "Hard will it be, and never gleeman's joywood will sing the deed," Aethelbert muttered. "By Odin's tree, the way of the hero is no easy one."

  "Oh-oh," Ben said. "There they go!"

  I saw the dust trail turn, drive for the massed loyalist units; the glow of gunfire brightened, concentrating. There was a general movement along the alien line as the forward ranks thrust out in flanking arms to enclose the attackers.

  "Let's go!" I said. We moved out, raced toward the distant horizon behind which lay the Place That Must Be Defended. All around us, the high, grim shapes of enemy battle units loomed from the enveloping dust cloud, their guns ready, the baroque shapes of strange brigade markings gleaming on their sides. We rumbled steadily on, ignored in the churning confusion, altering course little by little to angle closer to our objective.

  A unit with the garish markings of a Centurion turned across our path; its guns swung to track us. We trundled steadily on, steered past it. It moved off, and disappeared in the dust.

  The number of loyalist units around us was lessening now; I increased speed, probing the opacity ahead with a focused radar beam. Moments later, the dust thinned. Abruptly we were in the open. I slammed full power to my drive mechanism, surged forward at a speed that made the landscape flash past in a blur of gray. The tall peak loomed, a mile or two ahead, and I saw now that the pass lay to the left of it. I flicked on a detector screen, fanned it out to scan the ground behind me. I saw a heavy machine roar out of the curtain of dust, its disrupter grid glowing a baleful red.

  "They've spotted us!" I called. "Open fire-only a mile to go now!"

  I heard Aethelbert and Ben's curt acknowledgments, felt the tremors in the rock that meant their heavy guns were firing. Another alien unit hurtled into view and opened fire.

  On my left, Ben whooped suddenly, "I slipped home to him, Cap'n. Old Aethelbert was keepin' him busy, and I took him low. Watch!"

  I saw the leading pursuer veer to the right, bound up a low slope, and smash headlong into a towering rock slab. There was a shock that lifted me clear of the ground, slammed me ahead; a fountain of molten chromalloy and rock leaped up, fell all around; then dust closed over the scene.

  The pass was ahead now; I swung to enter it, gunned up the long slope. Ben followed, traili
ng by a quarter-mile. Far back, Aethelbert was coming up fast, the fire of the remaining alien unit lighting his defensive screens.

  I reached the crest of the pass, came to a halt looking down on a vast complex of works-tunnel heads, squat sheds, low circular structures of unknown function-gray, rough-textured, stark and ugly against the bleakness of the lunar landscape. And beyond the warren of buildings, a tower reached up into the glittering black of the night sky, a ragged shape like a lone spire remaining from a fallen ringwall: the Place That Must Be Defended.

  I looked back down the trail. From my vantage point I could see the broad sweep of the plain: the distant jumble of rock where we had regrouped, the milling mass of the enemy, strung out in a long pincers that enveloped the tiny group of winking lights that was Thomas and his dwindling band; and nearer, the dust trail reaching almost to the foot of the pass, and the second trail, close behind.

  From halfway down the sloping trail, Ben called, "Aethelbert's in trouble; he's taken a hit, I think-and that fellow's closing on him. I better give him a leg up."

  "Aethelbert!" I called. "Are you all right?"

  There was no answer. I saw him slow as he entered the pass, then turn sideways, blocking the entry, his guns pointed toward the enemy. The oncoming unit poured fire into the now stationary target; it rocked to hit after hit. Ben, coming up beside me, swung his guns, opened fire on the alien unit as it came within range.

  "Aethelbert, we'll cover you!" I called. "Come on up into the pass; you'll have shelter there!"

  "I'll tarry here, Jones," came a faint reply. "There'll be no lack of foes to tempt my thunder."

  "Just a few yards farther!"

  "Bare is the back without brother behind it," he sang out. "Now take the mead-hall of the goblins by storm, and may Odin guide your sword-arm!"

  "I'm goin' back for him!" Ben yelled.

  "As you were, Ben! The target's ahead! Let's go and get it!" I launched myself down the slope without waiting to see him comply. A moment later, he passed me, racing to run interference.

  "Head for the tower," I called. The first buildings were close now-unlovely constructions of featureless stone, puny in scale. I saw a tiny dark shape appear in a tunnel mouth, saw it bound toward a cluster of huts-and recognized it as one of the dog-things, looking no larger to me than a leaping rat, its head grotesquely muffled in a breathing mask-apparently its only protection from the lunar vacuum. I veered, bore down on it, saw its skull-face twist toward me as my treads caught it, pulped it in an instant, flung the bristled rag that was its corpse far behind.

  Ben braked to a halt before a wide gate, swung his forward battery on it, blasted it to rubble, then roared ahead through the gap, with me close behind A shock wave struck me like a solid wall of steel. I felt myself go up, leap back, crash to the rocky ground, slide to rest in a shower of debris. Half dazed, I stared through the settling dust, saw the blackened hulk that had been my Confederate scout, smoke boiling from every aperture, his treads gone, gun barrels melted. I shouted his name, caught a faint reply:

  "Cap'n… don't move… trap… all automatic stuff. I saw 'em… too late. Hellbores… set in the walls. You'll trigger 'em… when you move… don't… stir…" I felt his mind-field fade, wink out.

  I scanned the interior of the compound, saw the black mouths of the mighty guns, aimed full on me-waiting. I reached out, felt for the dim glow of cybernetic controls, but found nothing. They were mechanically operated, set to blast anything that moved in the target area. The detonation that had halted me in my tracks had saved my life.

  Ben was dead. Behind me, Aethelbert held the pass alone, and on the plain, my comrades fought on, in ever-dwindling numbers, covering my desperate bid for victory.

  And I was here, caught like a fly in a web-helpless, fifty yards from my objective.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The explosion had blackened the pavement of the court, gouged a crater a yard deep, charred the blank invulnerable walls that ringed it. My hull, too, must be blackened and pitted. I could see fragments of my blasted comrade scattered all across the yard; splashes of molten metal were bright against the drab masonry.

  There were openings in the walls, I noted as the last of the dust fell back, and the final shreds of black smoke dissipated in the near-vacuum. They seemed no bigger than ratholes, but I realized they were actually about a yard wide and half again as high.

  As I watched, a pale snout poked from one; then the lean withers and flanks of a demon appeared, its size diminished by contrast with my immense body. The thing wore a respirator helmet like the one I had seen earlier; straps crisscrossed its back. It bounded lightly to the burned-out hulk of Ben's body. It circled, stepping daintily around chunks that still glowed red. It came across to me, then disappeared as it passed under the range of my visual sensors.

  I held myself motionless, carefully withdrew vitality from my external circuitry, closed myself behind an inner shield of no-thought. Alone in the absolute darkness of sensory deprivation, I waited for what might happen next.

  Faintly, I felt a probing touch-ghostly fingers of alien thought that groped along my dark circuits, seeking indications of activity. There was an abortive shudder as an impulse was directed at my drive controls. Then the probe withdrew.

  Cautiously, I extended sensitivity to my visual complex, saw the creature as it trotted back to its hole. Again the compound was silent and empty, except for the corpse of the great machine that had been my friend.

  Quickly, I ran an inspection, and discovered the worst: my drive mechanism was fused at vital points in the front suspension, and my forward batteries were inoperative-warped by the terrific heat of the blast from the hellbores that had smashed Ben. I was trapped inside ten thousand terrestrial tons of inert, dead metal.

  More demons emerged from the building, trotting from the same arched doorway. Other creatures followed-squat, many-armed things like land-walking octopi. They went to Ben, swarmed over the hot metal. Perched high on the blackened carapace, they set to work. Below on the dusty ground, the demons paced, or stood in pairs, silently watching.

  I considered reaching out to touch a demon mind, and rejected the idea. I was not skilled enough to be sure of not alerting it, warning it that something still lived inside my scorched and battered hull.

  Instead, I selected a small horror squatting on the fused mass that had been Ben's forward turret; I reached out, found the awareness-center…

  Grays and blacks and whites, dimly seen, but with distorted pseudoscent images sharp-etched; furtive thoughts of food and warmth and rest; a wanderlust, and a burning drive for a formless concept that was a female…

  It was the brain of a cat, installed in the maintenance machine, its natural drives perverted to the uses of the aliens. I explored the tiny brain, and saw the wonderful complexity of even this simple mechanism-vastly more sophisticated than even the most complex of cybernetic circuits.

  With an effort, I extended the scope of my contact, saw mistily what the cat-machine saw: the pitted surface of metal on which it squatted, the tiny cutting tools with which it was drilling deep into the burned chromalloy of the ruined hull. I sensed the heat of the metal, the curve of it under me, the monomaniacal drive to do thus-and thus-boring the holes, setting the charge, moving on to the next…

  I pulled back, momentarily confused by the immediacy of the experience. The small machines, under the direction of the demons, were preparing to blast open the fused access hatch.

  Abruptly, I became aware of a sensation in my outer hull, checked the appropriate sensors, felt the pressure of small bodies, the hot probe of needle-tipped drills…

  In my preoccupation, I had failed to notice that a crew was at work on me, too. In minutes, or at most in an hour or two, a shock would drive through me, as my upper access hatch was blasted away, exposing my living brain to the vacuum and the cold metal probes of the machines.

  I reached out to the maintenance unit again. I insinuated myself into its crampe
d ego center, absorbed its self-identity concept, felt for and made contact with its limited senses, its multiple limbs-analogous, I discovered, to fingers and toes.

  Now I seemed to squat high on the ruined machine, looking across with dim sight at the towering fire-scarred hulk that was myself. My entire forward surface was a fused mass, deeply indented by the force of the explosion. One tread was stripped away, and the proud barrels of my infinite repeater battery were charred stumps, protruding from the collapsed shape of their turret. Busy workers were dark shapes like fat spiders on the towering hulk of my body.

  Delicately, I directed movement to the cat's limbs. They moved smoothly in response, walked me across the twisted metal. I turned the sensory cluster to stare across at the openings in the wall, gaping now like great arched entries. Half a dozen now-huge demons paced or stood between me and the doors. None seemed to have noticed that I was no longer at work. I moved on down the side of the wrecked machine, sprang to the dust-drifted ground. A demon turned empty red eyes on me, looked past me, turned aside. I moved toward the nearest archway, scuttling along at a speed that I hoped was appropriate to a maintenance unit returning to its storage bay for repairs or supplies.

  Another demon swung its head to watch, followed me with its eyes as I crossed the open ground. I reached the doorway, hopped up the low step, slipped into the darkness of the high-arched passage.

  Here I turned, looked back, and caught a last glimpse of the mighty machine that had been my body. Inside it, in a trance-like state, my brain still lay-helpless now, vulnerable to any attack, mental or physical, that might be directed against it. The least probe from a curious demon, a command from a Centurion, and I would fall once again under the spell that had held me before-but this time, there would be no reserve personality fraction to preserve me.

  And the fragment of the living force that was a mind-field, detached and localized in the intricacy of the brain of a cat-the intangible that was the essential 'I'-was helpless too, defenseless without the power of the native brain to draw on.