A Plague of Demons

by Keith Laumer

  The One-Who-Records expelled a gust of the planet's noxious atmosphere from his ventral orifice-array, with an effort freed his intellect of the shattering extinction-resonances it had absorbed. Cautiously, he probed outward, sensing the strange, fiery mind-glow of the alien…

  Ah, he too was injured! The One-Who-Records shifted his weight from his scalded forelimb, constricted further the flow of vital fluids through the damaged section of his epidermal system. He was weakened by the searing blast that had scored his flank, but still capable of action; and up above, the wounded water being waited.

  Deftly, the Djann extracted the hand weapon from the sheath strapped to his side, holding it in a two-handed grip, its broad base resting on his dorsal ridge, its ring lenses aligned along his body. He wished briefly that he had spent more li periods in the gestalt tanks, impressing the weapon's use syndromes on his reflex system; but feckless regrets made poor scansion. Now indeed the display podium of existence narrowed down to a single confrontation: a brief and final act in a century-old drama, with the fate of the mighty epic of the Djann resting thereon. The One-Who-Records sounded a single, trumpet-like resonance of exultation, and moved forward to fulfill his destiny.

  27

  At the faint bleat of sound, Carnaby raised his head. How long had he lain here, waiting for the alien to make its move? Maybe an hour, maybe longer. He had passed out at least twice, possibly for no more than a second or two; but it could have been longer. The Djann might even have gotten past him-or crawled along below the ridge, ready now to jump him from a new angle…

  He thought of Terry Sickle, waiting for him, counting on him. Poor kid. Time was running out for him. The sun was dropping low, and the shadows would be closing in. It would be icy cold inside the hut and down there in the dark the boy was slowly strangling, maybe calling for him…

  He couldn't wait any longer. To hell with the alien. He'd held him long enough. Painfully, using the wall as a support, Carnaby got to his hands and knees. His side felt as though it had been opened and packed with red-hot stones-or were they ice-cold? His hands and feet were numb. His face ached. Frostbite. He'd look fine with a frozen ear. Funny, how vanity survived as long as life itself…

  He got to his feet, leaned against the building, worked on breathing. The sky swam past him, fading and brightening. His feet felt like blocks of wood; that wasn't good. He had a long way to go. But the activity would warm him, get the blood flowing, except where the hot stones were. He would be lighter if he could leave them here. His hands moved at his side, groping over torn polyon, the sharp ends of broken wires…

  He brought his mind back to clarity with an effort. Wouldn't do to start wandering now. The gun caught his eye, lying at his feet. Better pick it up; but to hell with it, too much trouble. Navy property. But can't leave it here for the enemy to find. Enemy. Funny dream about a walking oxy tank, and He was looking at the dead Djann, lying awkward, impossible, thirty feet away. No dream. The damn thing was real. He was here, alone, on top of Thunderhead But he couldn't be. Flitter was broken down. Have to get another message off via the next tramp steamer that made planetfall. Hadn't been one for… how long…?

  Something moved, a hundred feet away, among the tumble of broken rock. Carnaby ducked, came up with the blast rifle, fired in a half-crouch from the hip, saw a big dark shape scramble up and over the edge, saw the wink of yellow light, fired again, cursing the weakness that made the gun buck and yaw in his hands, the darkness that closed over his vision. With hands that were stiff, clumsy, he fired a third time at the swift-darting shape that charged toward him; and then he was falling, falling…

  28

  Stunned by the direct hit from the energy weapon of the water being, the One-Who-Records fought his way upward through a universe shot through with whirling shapes of fire, to emerge on a plateau of mortal agony.

  He tried to move, was shocked into paralysis by the cacophony of conflicting motor- and sense-impressions from shattered limbs and organs.

  Then I, too, die, the thought came to him with utter finality. And with me dies the once-mighty song of Djann…

  Failing, his mind groped outward, calling in vain for the familiar touch of his link brothers-and abruptly, a sharp sensation impinged on his sensitivity complex. Concepts of strange and alien shape drifted into his mind, beating at him with compelling urgency; concepts from a foreign brain:

  Youth, aspirations, the ring of the bugle's call to arms. A white palace rearing up into yellow sunlight; a bright banner, rippling against the blue sky, and the shadows of great trees ranked on green lawns. The taste of grapes, and an odor of flowers; night, and the moon reflected from still water; the touch of a soft hand and the face of a woman, invested with a supernal beauty; chords of a remote music that spoke of the inexpressibly desirable, the irretrievably lost…

  "Have we warred then, water beings?" the One-Who-Records sent his thought outward. "We who might have been brothers…?" With a mighty effort, he summoned his waning strength, sounded a final chord in tribute to that which had been, and was no more.

  29

  Carnaby opened his eyes and looked at the dead Djann lying in the crumpled position of its final agony against the wall of the hut, not six feet from him. For a moment, a curious sensation of loss plucked at his mind.

  "Sorry, fellow," he muttered aloud. "I guess you were doing what you had to do, too."

  He stood, felt the ground sway under his feet. His head was light, hot; a sharp, clear humming sounded in his ears. He took a step, caught himself as his knees tried to buckle.

  "Damn it, no time to fall out now," he grunted. He moved past the alien body, paused by the door to the shed. A waft of warm air caressed his cold-numbed face.

  "Could go inside," he muttered. "Wait there. Ship along in a few hours, maybe. Pick me up…" He shook his head angrily. "Job's not done yet," he said clearly, addressing the white gleam of the ten-mile-distant peak known as Cream Top. "Just a little longer, Terry," he added. "I'm coming."

  Painfully, Carnaby made his way to the edge of the plateau, and started down.

  30

  "We'd better make shift to sub-L now, Admiral," Drew said, strain showing in his voice. "We're cutting it fine as it is."

  "Every extra minute at full gain saves a couple of hours," the vice admiral came back.

  "That won't help us if we kick out inside the Delta limit and blow ourselves into free ions," the general said coolly.

  "You've made your point, General!" The admiral kept his eyes fixed on his instruments. Half a minute ticked past. Then he nodded curtly.

  "All right, kick us out," he snapped, "and we'll see where we stand."

  The hundred-ton interceptor shuddered as the distorters whined down the scale, allowing the stressed-space field that had enclosed the vessel to collapse. A star swam suddenly into the visible spectrum, blazing at planetary distance off the starboard bow at three o'clock high.

  "Our target's the second body, there." He pointed. The co-pilot nodded and punched the course into the panel.

  "What would you say, another hour?" the admiral bit off the words.

  "Make it two," the other replied shortly. He glanced up, caught the admiral's eye on him.

  "Kidding ourselves won't change anything," he said steadily.

  Admiral Carnaby narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth to speak, then clamped his jaw shut.

  "I guess I've been a little snappy with you, George," he said. "I'll ask your pardon. That's my brother down there."

  "Your…?" the general's features tightened. "I guess I said some stupid things myself, Tom." He frowned at the instruments, busied himself adjusting course for an MIT approach to the planet.

  31

  Carnaby half jumped, half fell the last few yards to the narrow ledge called Halliday's Roost, landed awkwardly in a churn of powdered wind-driven snow. For a moment, he lay sprawled, then gathered himself, made it to his feet, tottered to the hollow concealing the drifted entrance to the hut. He
lowered himself, crawled down into the dark, clammy interior.

  "Terry," he called hoarsely. A wheezing breath answered him. He felt his way to the boy's side, groped over him. He lay on his side, his legs curled against his chest.

  "Terry!" Carnaby pulled the lad to a sitting position, felt him stir feebly. "Terry, I'm back! We have to go now, Terry…"

  "I knew…" the boy stopped to draw an agonizing breath, "you'd come…" He groped, found Carnaby's hand.

  Carnaby fought the dizziness that threatened to close in on him. He was cold-colder than he had ever been. The climbing hadn't warmed him. The side wasn't bothering him much now; he could hardly feel it. But he couldn't feel his hands and feet, either. They were like stumps, good for nothing… Clumsily, he backed through the entry, bodily hauling Terry with him.

  Outside the wind lashed at him like frozen whips. Carnaby raised Terry to his feet. The boy leaned against him, slid down, crumpled to the ground.

  "Terry, you've got to try," Carnaby gasped out. His breath seemed to freeze in his throat. "No time… to waste… got to get you to… Doc Link…"

  "Lieutenant… I… can't…"

  "Terry… you've got to try!" He lifted the boy to his feet.

  "I'm… scared… Lieutenant…" Terry stood swaying, his slight body quivering, his knees loose.

  "Don't worry, Terry." Carnaby guided the boy to the point from which they would start the climb down. "Not far, now."

  "Lieutenant…" Sickle caught at Carnaby's arm. "You… better… leave… me." His breath sighed in his throat.

  "I'll go first," Carnaby heard his own voice as from a great distance. "Take… it easy. I'll be right there… to help…"

  He forced a breath of sub-zero air into his lungs. The bitter wind moaned around the shattered rock. The dusky afternoon sun shed a reddish light without heat on the long slope below.

  "It's late," he mouthed the words with stiff lips. "It's late…"

  32

  Two hundred thousand feet above the surface of the outpost world Longone, the Fleet interceptor split the stratosphere, its receptors fine-tuned to the Djann energy-cell emission spectrum.

  "Three hundred million square miles of desert," Admiral Carnaby said. "Except for a couple of deserted townsites, not a sign that any life ever existed here."

  "We'll find it, Tom," Drew said. "If they'd lifted, Malthusa would have known-hold it!" He looked up quickly, "I'm getting something-yes! It's the typical Djann idler output!"

  "How far from us?"

  "Quite a distance… now it's fading…"

  The admiral put the ship into a screaming deceleration curve that crushed both men brutally against the restraint of their shock frames.

  "Find that signal, George," the vice admiral grated. "Find it and steer me to it, if you have to pick it out of the air with psi!"

  "I've got it!" Drew barked. "Steer right, on 030. I'd range it at about two thousand kilometers…"

  33

  On the bald face of an outcropping of wind-scored stone, Carnaby clung one-handed to a scanty hold, supporting Terry with the other arm. The wind shrieked, buffeting at him; sand-fine snow whirled into his face, slashing at his eyes, already half-blinded by the glare. The boy slumped against him, barely conscious.

  His mind seemed as sluggish now as his half-frozen limbs. Somewhere below there was a ledge, with shelter from the wind. How far? Ten feet? Fifty?

  It didn't matter. He had to reach it. He couldn't hold on here, in this wind; in another minute he'd be done for.

  Carnaby pulled Terry closer, got a better grip with a hand that seemed no more a part of him than the rock against which they clung. He shifted his purchase with his right foot-and felt it slip. He was falling, grabbing frantically with one hand at the rock, then dropping through open air The impact against drifted snow drove the air from his lungs. Darkness shot through with red fire threatened to close in on him; he fought to draw a breath, struggling in the claustrophobia of suffocation. Loose snow fell away under him, and he was sliding. With a desperate lunge, he caught a ridge of hard ice, pulled himself back from the brink, then groped, found Terry, lying on his back under the vertically rising wall of rock. The boy stirred.

  "So… tired…" he whispered. His body arched as he struggled to draw breath.

  Carnaby pulled himself to a position beside the boy, propped himself with his back against the wall. Dimly, through ice-rimmed eyes, he could see the evening lights of the settlement, far below; so far…

  He put his arm around the thin body, settled the lad's head gently in his lap, leaned over him to shelter him from the whirling snow. "It's all right, Terry," he said. "You can rest now."

  34

  Supported on three narrow pencils of beamed force, the Fleet interceptor slowly circuited the Djann yacht, hovering on its idling null-G generators a thousand feet above the towering white mountain.

  "Nothing alive there," the co-pilot said. "Not a whisper on the life-detection scale."

  "Take her down." Vice Admiral Carnaby squinted through S-R lenses which had darkened almost to opacity in response to the frost-white glare from below. "The shack looks all right, but that doesn't look like a Mark 7 Flitter parked beside it."

  The heavy Fleet boat descended swiftly under the expert guidance of the battle officer. At fifty feet, it leveled off, orbited the station.

  "I count four dead Djann," the admiral said in a brittle voice.

  "Tracks," the general pointed. "Leading off there…"

  "Put her down, George!" The hundred-foot boat settled in with a crunching of rock and ice, its shark's prow overhanging the edge of the tiny plateau. The hatch cycled open; the two men emerged.

  At the spot where Carnaby had lain in wait for the last of the aliens, they paused, staring silently at the glossy patch of dark blood, and at the dead Djann beside it. Then they followed the irregularly spaced footprints across to the edge.

  "He was still on his feet-but that's about all," the battle officer said.

  "George, can you operate that Spider boat?" The admiral indicated the Djann landing sled.

  "Certainly."

  "Let's go."

  35

  It was twilight half an hour later when the admiral, peering through the obscuring haze of blown snow, saw the snow-drifted shapes huddled in the shadow of an overhang. Fifty feet lower, the general settled the sled in to a precarious landing on a narrow shelf. It was a ten-minute climb back to their objective.

  Vice Admiral Carnaby pulled himself up the last yard, looked across the icy ledge at the figure in the faded blue polyon cold-suit. He saw the weathered and lined face, glazed with ice; the closed eyes, the gnarled and bloody hands, the great wound in the side.

  The general came up beside him, stared silently, then went forward.

  "I'm sorry, Admiral," he said a moment later. "He's dead. Frozen. Both of them."

  The admiral came up, knelt at Carnaby's side.

  "I'm sorry, Jimmy," he said. "Sorry…"

  "I don't understand," the general said. "He could have stayed up above, in the station. He'd have been all right there. What in the world was he doing down here?"

  "What he always did," Admiral Carnaby said. "His duty."

  End as a Hero

  1

  In the dream I was swimming in a river of white fire. The dream went on and on; and then I was awake-and the fire was still there, fiercely burning at me.

  I moved to get away from the flames, and the real pain hit me. I tried to go back to sleep and the relative comfort of the river of fire, but it was no go. For better or worse, I was alive and conscious.

  I opened my eyes and took a look around. I was on the floor next to an unpadded acceleration couch-the kind the Terrestrial Space Arm installs in seldom-used lifeboats. There were three more couches, but no one in them. I tried to sit up. It wasn't easy but, by applying a lot more will-power than should be required of a sick man, I made it. I took a look at my left arm. Baked. The hand was only medium rare,
but the forearm was black, with deep red showing at the bottom of the cracks where the crisped upper layers had burst.

  There was a first-aid cabinet across the compartment from me. I tried my right leg, felt broken bone-ends grate with a sensation that transcended pain. I heaved with the other leg, scrabbled with the charred arm. The crawl to the cabinet dwarfed Hillary's trek up Everest, but I reached it after a couple of years, and found the microswitch on the floor that activated the thing, and then I was fading out again…

  ***

  I came out of it clear-headed but weak. My right leg was numb, but reasonably comfortable, clamped tight in a walking brace. I put up a hand and felt a shaved skull, with sutures. It must have been a fracture. The left arm-well, it was still there, wrapped to the shoulder and held out stiffly by a power truss that would keep the scar tissue from pulling up and crippling me. The steady pressure as the truss contracted wasn't anything to do a sense-tape on for replaying at leisure moments, but at least the cabinet hadn't amputated. I wasn't complaining.

  As far as I knew, I was the first recorded survivor of contact with the Gool-if I survived.

  I was still a long way from home, and I hadn't yet checked on the condition of the lifeboat. I glanced toward the entry port. It was dogged shut. I could see black marks where my burned hand had been at work.

  I fumbled my way into a couch and tried to think. In my condition-with a broken leg and third-degree burns, plus a fractured skull-I shouldn't have been able to fall out of bed, much less make the trip from Belshazzar's CCC to the boat; and how had I managed to dog that port shut? In an emergency a man was capable of great exertions. But running on a broken femur, handling heavy levers with charred fingers and thinking with a cracked head were overdoing it. Still, I was there-and it was time to get a call through to TSA headquarters.