A Plague of Demons

by Keith Laumer

  I/we find that a pattern of the following character will be most suitable… A complex symbolism was displayed.

  PERSEVERE IN THE FASHION DESCRIBED, the Egon commanded. ALL EXTRANEOUS FUNCTIONS WILL BE DISCONTINUED UNTIL SUCCESS IS ACHIEVED.

  With total singleness of purpose, the Ree sensors probed across space from the dark and silent ship, searching for a receptive human mind.

  ***

  The Interrogation Room was a totally bare cube of white enamel. At its geometric center, under a blinding white glare panel, sat a massive chair constructed of polished steel, casting an ink-black shadow.

  A silent minute ticked past; then heels clicked in the corridor. A tall man in a plain, dark military tunic came through the open door, halted, studying his prisoner. His wide, sagging face was as gray and bleak as a tombstone.

  "I warned you, Mallory," he said in a deep growling tone.

  "You're making a mistake, Koslo," Mallory said.

  "Openly arresting the people's hero, eh?" Koslo curved his wide, gray lips in a death's head smile. "Don't delude yourself. The malcontents will do nothing without their leader."

  "Are you sure you're ready to put your regime to the test so soon?"

  "It's that or wait, while your party gains strength. I chose the quicker course. I was never as good at waiting as you, Mallory."

  "Well-you'll know by morning."

  "That close, eh?" Koslo's heavy-lidded eyes pinched down on glints of light. He grunted. "I'll know many things by morning. You realize that your personal position is hopeless?" His eyes went to the chair.

  "In other words, I should sell out to you now in return for-what? Another of your promises?"

  "The alternative is the chair," Koslo said flatly.

  "You have great confidence in machinery, Koslo-more than in men. That's your great weakness."

  Koslo's hand went out, caressing the rectilinear metal of the chair. "This is a scientific apparatus designed to accomplish a specific task with the least possible difficulty to me. It creates conditions within the subject's neural system conducive to total recall, and at the same time amplifies the subvocalizations that accompany all highly cerebral activity. The subject is also rendered amenable to verbal cueing." He paused. "If you resist, it will destroy your mind-but not before you've told me everything: names, locations, dates, organization, operational plans-everything. It will be simpler for us both if you acknowledge the inevitable and tell me freely what I require to know."

  "And after you've got the information?"

  "You know my regime can't tolerate opposition. The more complete my information, the less bloodshed will be necessary."

  Mallory shook his head. "No," he said bluntly.

  "Don't be a fool, Mallory! This isn't a test of your manhood!"

  "Perhaps it is, Koslo: man against machine."

  Koslo's eyes probed at him. He made a quick gesture with one hand.

  "Strap him in."

  Seated in the chair, Mallory felt the cold metal suck the heat from his body. Bands restrained his arms, legs, torso. A wide ring of woven wire and plastic clamped his skull firmly to the formed headrest. Across the room, Fey Koslo watched.

  "Ready, Excellency," a technician said.

  "Proceed."

  Mallory tensed. An unwholesome excitement churned his stomach. He'd heard of the chair, of its power to scour a man's mind clean and leave him a gibbering hulk.

  Only a free society, he thought, can produce the technology that makes tyranny possible…

  He watched as a white-smocked technician approached, reached for the control panel. There was only one hope left: if he could fight the power of the machine, drag out the interrogation, delay Koslo until dawn…

  A needle-studded vise clamped down against Mallory's temples. Instantly his mind was filled with whirling fever images. He felt his throat tighten in an aborted scream. Fingers of pure force struck into his brain, dislodging old memories, ripping open the healed wounds of time. From somewhere, he was aware of a voice, questioning. Words trembled in his throat, yearning to be shouted aloud.

  I've got to resist! The thought flashed through his mind and was gone, borne away on a tide of probing impulses that swept through his brain like a millrace. I've got to hold out… long enough… to give the others a chance…

  ***

  Aboard the Ree ship, dim lights glowed and winked on the panel that encircled the control center.

  I/we sense a new mind-a transmitter of great power, the Perceptors announced suddenly. But the images are confused. I/we sense struggle, resistance…

  IMPOSE CLOSE CONTROL, the Egon ordered. NARROW FOCUS AND EXTRACT A REPRESENTATIVE PERSONALITY FRACTION!

  It is difficult; I/we sense powerful neural currents, at odds with the basic brain rhythms.

  COMBAT THEM!

  Again the Ree mind reached out, insinuated itself into the complex field-matrix that was Mallory's mind, and began, painstakingly, to trace out and reinforce its native symmetries, permitting the natural egomosaic to emerge, free from distracting counter-impulses.

  ***

  The technician's face went chalk-white as Mallory's body went rigid against the restraining bands.

  "You fool!" Koslo's voice cut at him like a whipping rod. "If he dies before he talks-"

  "He… he fights strongly, Excellency." The man's eyes scanned instrument faces. "Alpha through delta rhythms normal, though exaggerated," he muttered. "Metabolic index.99…"

  Mallory's body jerked. His eyes opened, shut. His mouth worked.

  "Why doesn't he speak?" Koslo barked.

  "It may require a few moments, Excellency, to adjust the power flows to ten-point resonance-"

  "Then get on with it, man! I risked too much in arresting this man to lose him now!"

  White-hot fingers of pure force lanced from the chair along the neural pathways within Mallory's brain-and met the adamantine resistance of the Ree probe. In the resultant confrontation, Mallory's battered self-awareness was tossed like a leaf in a gale.

  Fight! The remaining wisp of his conscious intellect gathered itself -and was grasped, encapsulated, swept up and away. He was aware of spinning through a whirling fog of white light shot through with flashes and streamers of red, blue, violet. There was a sensation of great forces that pressed at him, flung him to and fro, drew his mind out like a ductile wire until it spanned the Galaxy. The filament grew broad, expanded into a diaphragm that bisected the universe. The plane assumed thickness, swelled out to encompass all space-time. Faint and far away, he sensed the tumultuous coursing of the energies that ravened just beyond the impenetrable membrane of force The imprisoning sphere shrank, pressed in, forcing his awareness into needle-sharp focus. He knew, without knowing how he knew, that he was locked in a sealed and airless chamber, constricting, claustrophobic, all sound and sensation cut off. He drew breath to scream No breath came. Only a weak pulse of terror, quickly fading, as if damped by an inhibiting hand. Alone in the dark, Mallory waited, every sense tuned, monitoring the surrounding blankness…

  I/we have him! The Perceptors pulsed, and fell away. At the center of the chamber, the mind trap pulsed with the flowing energies that confined and controlled the captive brain pattern.

  TESTING WILL COMMENCE AT ONCE. The Egon brushed aside the interrogatory impulses from the mind-segments concerned with speculation. INITIAL STIMULI WILL BE APPLIED AND RESULTS NOTED. NOW!

  … and was aware of a faint glimmer of light across the room: the outline of a window. He blinked, raised himself on one elbow. Bedsprings creaked under him. He sniffed. An acid odor of smoke hung in the stifling air. He seemed to be in a cheap hotel room. He had no memory of how he came to be there. He threw back the coarse blanket and felt warped floor boards under his bare feet The boards were hot.

  He jumped up, went to the door, grasped the knob-and jerked his hand back. The metal had blistered his palm.

  He ran to the window, ripped aside the dirt-stiff gauze curtains, snapped open t
he latch, tugged at the sash. It didn't budge. He stepped back, kicked out the glass. Instantly a coil of smoke whipped in through the broken pane. Using the curtain to protect his hand, he knocked out the shards, swung a leg over the sill, stumbled onto the fire escape. The rusted metal cut at his bare feet. Groping, he made his way down half a dozen steps-and fell back as a sheet of red flame billowed from below.

  Over the rail he saw the street, lights puddled on grimy concrete ten stories down, white faces, like pale dots, upturned. A hundred feet away, an extension ladder swayed, approaching another wing of the flaming building, not concerned with him. He was lost, abandoned. Nothing could save him. For forty feet below, the iron ladder was an inferno.

  It would be easier, quicker, to go over the rail, escape the pain, die cleanly, the thought came into his mind with dreadful clarity.

  There was a tinkling crash and a window above blew out. Scalding embers rained down on his back. The iron was hot underfoot. He drew a breath, shielded his face with one arm, and plunged downward through the whipping flames…

  He was crawling, falling down the cruel metal treads and risers. The pain across his face, his back, his shoulder, his arm, was like a red-hot iron, applied and forgotten. He caught a glimpse of his arm, flayed, oozing, black-edged…

  His hands and feet were no longer his own. He used his knees and elbows, tumbled himself over yet another edge, sliding down to the next landing. The faces were closer now; hands were reaching up. He groped, got to his feet, felt the last section swing down as his weight went on it. His vision was a blur of red. He sensed the blistered skin sloughing from his thighs. A woman screamed.

  "… my God, burned alive and still walking!" a thin voice cawed.

  "… his hands… no fingers…"

  Something rose, smashed at him, a ghostly blow as blackness closed in…

  ***

  The response of the entity was anomalous, the Analyzers reported. Its life tenacity is enormous! Confronted with apparent imminent physical destruction, it chose agony and mutilation merely to extend survival for a brief period.

  The possibility exists that such a response represents a mere instinctive mechanism of unusual form, the Analyzers pointed out.

  If so, it might prove dangerous. More data on the point is required.

  I/WE WILL RESTIMULATE THE SUBJECT, the Egon ordered. THE PARAMETERS OF THE SURVIVAL DRIVE MUST BE ESTABLISHED WITH PRECISION, RESUME TESTING!

  ***

  In the chair, Mallory writhed, went limp.

  "Is he…?"

  "He's alive, Excellency. But something's wrong! I can't get through to a vocalization level. He's fighting me with some sort of fantasy-complex of his own!"

  "Bring him out of it!"

  "Excellency, I tried. I can't reach him. It's as though he'd tapped the chair's energy sources, and were using them to reinforce his own defense mechanism!"

  "Override him!"

  "I'll try-but his power is fantastic."

  "Then we'll use more power!"

  "It's… dangerous, Excellency."

  "Not more dangerous than failure!"

  Grim-faced, the technician reset the panel to step up the energy flow through Mallory's brain.

  ***

  The subject stirs! The Perceptors burst out. Massive new energies flow in the mind-field! My/our grip loosens…

  HOLD THE SUBJECT! RESTIMULATE AT ONCE, WITH MAXIMUM EMERGENCY FORCE!

  While the captive surged and fought against the restraint, the segmented mind of the alien concentrated its forces, hurled a new stimulus into the rolling captive mind-field.

  ***

  … Hot sun beat down on his back. A light wind ruffled the tall grass growing up the slope where the wounded lion had taken cover. Telltale drops of dark purple blood clinging to the tall stems marked the big cat's route. It would be up there, flattened to the earth under the clump of thorn trees, its yellow eyes narrowed against the agony of the.375 bullet in his chest, waiting, hoping for its tormentor to come to it…

  His heart was thudding under the damp khaki shirt. The heavy rifle felt like a toy in his hands-a useless plaything against the primitive fury of the beast. He took a step; his mouth twisted in an ironic grimace. What was he proving? There was no one here to know if he chose to walk back and sit under a tree and take a leisurely swig from his flask, let an hour or two crawl by-while the cat bled to death-and then go in to find the body. He took another step. And now he was walking steadily forward. The breeze was cool on his forehead. His legs felt light, strong. He drew a deep breath, smelled the sweetness of the spring air. Life had never seemed more precious There was a deep, asthmatic cough, and the great beast broke from the shadows, yellow fangs bared, muscles pumping under the dun hide, dark blood shining black along the flank He planted his feet, brought the gun up, socketed it against his shoulder as the lion charged down the slope. By the book, he thought sardonically. Take him just above the sternum, hold on him until you're sure… At a hundred feet he fired-just as the animal veered left. The bullet smacked home far back along the ribs. The cat broke stride, recovered. The gun bucked and roared again, and the snarling face exploded in a mask of red- And still the dying carnivore came on. He blinked sweat from his eyes, centered the sights on the point of the shoulder The trigger jammed hard. A glance showed him the spent cartridge lodged in the action. He raked at it vainly, standing his ground. At the last instant, he stepped aside, and the hurtling monster skidded past him, dead in the dust. And the thought that struck him then was that if Monica had been watching from the car at the foot of the hill she would not have laughed at him this time…

  ***

  Again the reaction syndrome is inharmonious with any concept of rationality in my/our experience, the Recollector cells expressed the paradox with which the captive mind had presented the Ree intelligence. Here is an entity which clings to personality survival with a ferocity unparalleled-yet faces Category Ultimate risks needlessly, in response to an abstract code of behavioral symmetry.

  I/we postulate that the personality segment selected does not represent the true Egon-analogue of the subject, the Speculators offered. It is obviously incomplete, nonviable.

  Let me/us attempt a selective withdrawal of control over peripheral regions of the mind-field, the Perceptors proposed. Thus permitting greater concentration of stimulus to the central matrix.

  By matching energies with the captive mind, it will be possible to monitor its rhythms and deduce the key to its total control, the Calculators determined quickly.

  This course offers the risk of rupturing the matrix and the destruction of the specimen.

  THE RISK MUST BE TAKEN.

  With infinite precision, the Ree mind narrowed the scope of its probe, fitting its shape to the contours of Mallory's embattled brain, matching itself in a one-to-one correspondence to the massive energy flows from the Interrogation chair.

  Equilibrium, the Perceptors reported at last. However, the balance is precarious.

  The next test must be designed to expose new aspects of the subject's survival syndrome, the Analyzers pointed out. A stimulus pattern was proposed and accepted. Aboard the ship in its sub-lunar orbit, the Ree mindbeam again lanced out to touch Mallory's receptive brain…

  ***

  Blackness gave way to misty light. A deep rumbling shook the rocks under his feet. Through the whirling spray, he saw the raft, the small figure that clung to it: a child, a little girl perhaps nine years old, crouched on hands and knees, looking toward him.

  "Daddy!" A high, thin cry of pure terror. The raft bucked and tossed in the wild current. He took a step, slipped, almost went down on the slimy rocks. The icy water swirled about his knees. A hundred feet downstream, the river curved in a gray-metal sheen, over and down, veiled by the mists of its own thunderous descent. He turned, scrambled back up, ran along the bank. There, ahead, a point of rock jutted. Perhaps…

  The raft bobbed, whirled, fifty feet away. Too far. He saw the pale, small face, th
e pleading eyes. Fear welled in him, greasy and sickening.

  Visions of death rose up, of his broken body bobbing below the falls, lying wax-white on a slab, sleeping, powdered and false in a satin-lined box, corrupting in the close darkness under the indifferent sod…

  He took a trembling step back.

  For an instant, a curious sensation of unreality swept over him. He remembered darkness, a sense of utter claustrophobia-and a white room, a face that leaned close…

  He blinked-and through the spray of the rapids, his eyes met those of the doomed child. Compassion struck him like a club. He grunted, felt the clean white flame of anger at himself, of disgust at his fear. He closed his eyes and leaped far out, struck the water and went under, came up gasping. His strokes took him toward the raft. He felt a heavy blow as the current tossed him against a rock, choked as chopping spray whipped in his face. The thought came that broken ribs didn't matter now, nor air for breathing. Only to reach the raft before it reached the edge, that the small, frightened soul might not go down alone-into the great darkness…

  His hands clawed the rough wood. He pulled himself up, caught the small body to him as the world dropped away and the thunder rose deafeningly to meet him…

  ***

  "Excellency! I need help!" The technician appealed to the grim-faced dictator. "I'm pouring enough power through his brain to kill two ordinary men-and he still fights back! For a second there, a moment ago, I'd swear he opened his eyes and looked right through me! I can't take the responsibility-"

  "Then cut the power, you blundering idiot!"