A Plague of Demons

by Keith Laumer

  "I don't dare, the backlash will kill him!"

  "He… must… talk!" Koslo grated. "Hold him! Break him! Or I promise you a slow and terrible death!"

  Trembling, the technician adjusted his controls. In the chair, Mallory sat tense, no longer fighting the straps. He looked like a man lost in thought. Perspiration broke from his hairline, trickled down his face.

  Again new currents stir in the captive, the Perceptors announced in alarm. The resources of this mind are staggering!

  MATCH IT! The Egon directed.

  My/our power resources are already overextended! The Calculators interjected.

  WITHDRAW ENERGIES FROM ALL PERIPHERAL FUNCTIONS! LOWER SHIELDING! THE MOMENT OF THE ULTIMATE TEST IS UPON ME/US!

  Swiftly the Ree mind complied.

  The captive is held, the Calculator announced. But I/we must point out that this linkage now presents a channel of vulnerability to assault.

  THE RISK MUST BE TAKEN.

  Even now the mind stirs against my/our control.

  HOLD IT FAST!

  Grimly, the Ree mind fought to retain its control of Mallory's brain.

  In one instant, he was not. Then, abruptly, he existed. Mallory, he thought. That symbol represents I/we…

  The alien thought faded. He caught at it, held the symbol. Mallory. He remembered the shape of his body, the feel of his skull enclosing his brain, the sensations of light, sound, heat-but here there was no sound, no light. Only the enclosing blackness, impenetrable, eternal, changeless…

  But where was here?

  He remembered the white room, the harsh voice of Koslo, the steel chair And the mighty roar of the waters rushing up at him And the reaching talons of a giant cat And the searing agony of flames that licked around his body…

  But there was no pain, now, no discomfort-no sensation of any kind. Was this death, then? At once, he rejected the idea as nonsense.

  Cogito ergo sum. I am a prisoner-where?

  His senses stirred, questing against emptiness, sensationlessness. He strained outward-and heard sound; voices, pleading, demanding. They grew louder, echoing in the vastness:

  "… talk, damn you! Who are your chief accomplices? What support do you expect from the Armed Forces? Which of the generals are with you? Armaments…? Organization…? Initial attack points…?"

  Blinding static sleeted across the words, filled the universe, grew dim. For an instant, Mallory was aware of straps cutting into the tensed muscles of his forearms, the pain of the band clamped around his head, the ache of cramping muscles…

  … was aware of floating, gravityless, in a sea of winking, flashing energies. Vertigo rose up; frantically he fought for stability in a world of chaos. Through spinning darkness he reached, found a matrix of pure direction, intangible, but, against the background of shifting energy flows, providing an orienting grid. He seized on it, held…

  ***

  Full emergency discharge! The Receptors blasted the command through all the sixty-nine hundred and thirty-four units of the Ree mind-and recoiled in shock. The captive mind clings to the contact! We cannot break free!

  Pulsating with the enormous shock of the prisoner's sudden outlashing, the alien rested for the fractional nanosecond required to reestablish intersegmental balance.

  The power of the enemy, though unprecedentedly great, is not sufficient to broach the integrity of my/our entity-field, the Analyzers stated, tensely. But I/we must retreat at once!

  NO! I/WE LACK SUFFICIENT DATA TO JUSTIFY WITHDRAWAL OF PHASE ONE, the Egon countermanded. HERE IS A MIND RULED BY CONFLICTING DRIVES OF GREAT POWER. WHICH IS PARAMOUNT? THEREIN LIES THE KEY TO ITS DEFEAT.

  I/WE MUST DEVISE A STIMULATION COMPLEX WHICH WILL EVOKE BOTH DRIVES IN LETHAL OPPOSITION.

  Precious microseconds passed while the compound mind hastily scanned Mallory's mind for symbols from which to assemble the necessary gestalt-form.

  Ready, the Perceptors announced. But it must be pointed out that no mind can long survive intact the direct confrontation of these antagonistic imperatives. Is the stimulus to be carried to the point of nonretrieval?

  AFFIRMATIVE. The Egon's tone was one of utter finality. TEST TO DESTRUCTION.

  ***

  Illusion, Mallory told himself. I'm being bombarded by illusions… He sensed the approach of a massive new wave front, descending on him like a breaking Pacific comber. Grimly, he clung to his tenuous orientation-but the smashing impact whirled him into darkness. Far away, a masked inquisitor faced him.

  "Pain has availed nothing against you," the muffled voice said. "The threat of death does not move you. And yet there is a way…" A curtain fell aside, and Monica stood there, tall, slim, vibrantly alive, as beautiful as a roe-deer. And beside her, the child.

  He said "No!" and started forward, but the chains held him. He watched, helpless, while brutal hands seized the woman, moved casually, intimately, over her body. Other hands gripped the child. He saw the terror on the small face, the fear in her eyes Fear that he had seen before…

  But of course he had seen her before. The child was his daughter, the precious offspring of himself and the slender female Monica, he corrected himself

  - had seen those eyes, through swirling mist, poised above a cataract No. That was a dream. A dream in which he had died, violently. And there had been another dream of facing a wounded lion as it charged down on him "You will not be harmed," the Inquisitor's voice seemed to come from a remote distance. "But you will carry with you forever the memory of their living dismemberment…"

  With a jerk, his attention returned to the woman and the child. He saw them strip Monica's slender, tawny body. Naked, she stood before them, refusing to cower. But of what use was courage now? The manacles at her wrists were linked to a hook set in the damp stone wall. The glowing iron moved closer to her white flesh. He saw the skin darken and blister. The iron plunged home. She stiffened, screamed…

  A woman screamed.

  "My God, burned alive," a thin voice cawed. "And still walking!"

  He looked down. There was no wound, no scar. The skin was unbroken. But a fleeting almost-recollection came of crackling flames that seared with a white agony as he drew them into his lungs…

  "A dream," he said aloud. "I'm dreaming. I have to wake up!" He closed his eyes and shook his head…

  ***

  "He shook his head!" the technician choked. "Excellency, it's impossible-but I swear the man is throwing off the machine's control!"

  Koslo brushed the other roughly aside. He seized the control lever, pushed it forward. Mallory stiffened. His breathing became hoarse, ragged.

  "Excellency, the man will die…!"

  "Let him die! No one defies me with impunity!"

  Narrow focus! The Perceptors flashed the command to the sixty-nine hundred and thirty-four energy-producing segments of the Ree mind. The contest cannot continue long! Almost we lost the captive then…!

  The probe beam narrowed, knifing into the living heart of Mallory's brain, imposing its chosen patterns…

  ***

  … the child whimpered as the foot-long blade approached her fragile breast. The gnarled fist holding the knife stroked it almost lovingly across the blue-veined skin. Crimson blood washed down from the shallow wound.

  "If you reveal the secrets of the Brotherhood to me, truly your comrades in arms will die," the Inquisitor's faceless voice droned. "But if you stubbornly refuse, your woman and your infant will suffer all that my ingenuity can devise."

  He strained against his chains. "I can't tell you," he croaked. "Don't you understand, nothing is worth this horror! Nothing…"

  Nothing he could have done would have saved her. She crouched on the raft, doomed. But he could join her But not this time. This time chains of steel kept him from her. He hurled himself against them, and tears blinded his eyes…

  Smoke blinded his eyes. He looked down, saw the faces upturned below. Surely, easy death was preferable to living immolation. But he covered his face w
ith his arms and started down…

  Never betray your trust! The woman's voice rang clear as a trumpet across the narrow dungeon.

  Daddy! the child screamed.

  We can die only once! the woman called.

  The raft plunged downward into boiling chaos…

  "Speak, damn you!" The Inquisitor's voice had taken on a new note. "I want the names, the places! Who are your accomplices? What are your plans? When will the rising begin? What signal are they waiting for? Where…? When…?"

  Mallory opened his eyes. Blinding white light, a twisted face that loomed before him, goggling.

  "Excellency! He's awake! He's broken through…"

  "Pour full power into him! Force, man! Force him to speak!"

  "I-I'm afraid, Excellency! We're tampering with the mightiest instrument in the universe: a human brain! Who knows what we may be creating-"

  Koslo struck the man aside, threw the control lever full against the stop.

  ***

  … The darkness burst into a coruscating brilliance that became the outlines of a room. A transparent man whom he recognized as Koslo stood before him. He watched as the dictator turned to him, his face contorted.

  "Now talk, damn you!"

  His voice had a curious, ghostly quality, as though it represented only one level of reality.

  "Yes," Mallory said distinctly. "I'll talk."

  "And if you lie-" Koslo jerked an ugly automatic pistol from the pocket of his plain tunic. "I'll put a bullet in your brain myself!"

  "My chief associates in the plot," Mallory began, "are…" As he spoke, he gently disengaged himself-that was the word that came to his mind-from the scene around him. He was aware at one level of his voice speaking on, reeling off the facts for which the other man hungered so nakedly. And he reached out, channeling the power pouring into him from the chair… spanning across vast distances compressed now to a dimensionless plane. Delicately, he quested farther, entered a curious, flickering net of living energies. He pressed, found points of weakness, poured in more power A circular room leaped into eerie visibility. Ranged around it were lights that winked and glowed. From ranked thousands of cells, white wormforms poked blunt, eyeless heads…

  HE IS HERE! The Egon shrieked the warning, and hurled a bolt of pure mind-force along the channel of contact and met a counter-bolt of energy that seared through him, blackened and charred the intricate organic circuitry of his cerebrum, left a smoking pocket in the rank of cells. For a moment, Mallory rested, sensing the shock and bewilderment sweeping through the leaderless Ree mind-segments. He felt the automatic death-urge that gripped them as the realization reached them that the guiding over-power of the Egon was gone. As he watched, a unit crumpled inward and expired. And another "Stop!" Mallory commanded. "I assume control of the mind-complex! Let the segments link in with me!"

  Obediently, the will-less fragments of the Ree mind obeyed.

  "Change course," Mallory ordered. He gave the necessary instructions, then withdrew along the channel of contact.

  ***

  "So… the great Mallory broke." Koslo rocked on his heels before the captive body of his enemy. He laughed. "You were slow to start, but once begun you sang like a turtledove. I'll give you my orders now, and by dawn your futile revolt will be a heap of charred corpses stacked in the plaza as an example to others!" He raised the gun.

  "I'm not through yet," Mallory said. "The plot runs deeper than you think, Koslo."

  The dictator ran a hand over his gray face. His eyes showed the terrible strain of the last hours.

  "Talk, then," he growled. "Talk fast!"

  As he spoke on, Mallory again shifted his primary awareness, settled into resonance with the subjugated Ree intelligence. Through the ship's sensors, he saw the white planet swelling ahead. He slowed the vessel, brought it in on a long parabolic course which skimmed the stratosphere. Seventy miles above the Atlantic, he entered a high haze layer, slowed again as he sensed the heating of the hull.

  Below the clouds, he sent the ship hurtling across the coast. He dropped to treetop level, scanned the scene through sensitive hull-plates For a long moment he studied the landscape below. Then suddenly he understood…

  ***

  "Why do you smile, Mallory?" Koslo's voice was harsh; the gun pointed at the other's head. "Tell me the joke that makes a man laugh in the condemned seat reserved for traitors."

  "You'll know in just a moment…" He broke off as a crashing sound came from beyond the room. The floor shook and trembled, rocking Koslo on his feet. A dull boom echoed. The door burst wide.

  "Excellency! The capital is under attack!" The man fell forward, exposing a great wound on his back. Koslo whirled on Mallory With a thunderous crash, one side of the room bulged and fell inward. Through the broached wall, a glittering torpedo-shape appeared, a polished intricacy of burnished metal floating lightly on pencils of blue-white light. The gun in the hand of the dictator came up, crashed deafeningly in the enclosed space. From the prow of the invader, pink light winked. Koslo spun, fell heavily on his face.

  The twenty-eight-inch Ree dreadnought came to rest before Mallory. A beam speared out, burned through the chair control panel. The shackles fell away.

  I/we await your/our next command. The Ree mind spoke soundlessly in the awesome silence.

  ***

  Three months had passed since the referendum which had swept John Mallory into office as Premier of the First Planetary Republic. He stood in a room of his spacious apartment in the Executive Palace, frowning at the slender black-haired woman as she spoke earnestly to him.

  "John-I'm afraid of that-that infernal machine, eternally hovering, waiting for your orders."

  "But why, Monica? That infernal machine, as you call it, was the thing that made a free election possible-and even now it's all that holds Koslo's old organization in check."

  "John-" Her hand gripped his arm. "With that-thing-always at your beck and call, you can control anyone, anything on Earth! No opposition can stand before you!"

  She looked directly at him. "It isn't right for anyone to have such power, John. Not even you. No human being should be put to such a test!"

  His face tightened. "Have I misused it?"

  "Not yet. That's why…"

  "You imply that I will?"

  "You're a man, with the failings of a man."

  "I propose only what's good for the people of Earth," he said sharply. "Would you have me voluntarily throw away the one weapon that can protect our hard-won freedom?"

  "But, John-who are you to be the sole arbiter of what's good for the people of Earth?"

  "I'm Chairman of the Republic-"

  "You're still human. Stop-while you're still human!"

  He studied her face. "You resent my success, don't you? What would you have me do? Resign?"

  "I want you to send the machine away-back to wherever it came from."

  He laughed shortly. "Are you out of your mind? I haven't begun to extract the technological secrets the Ree ship represents."

  "We're not ready for those secrets, John. The race isn't ready. It's already changed you. In the end it can only destroy you as a man."

  "Nonsense. I control it utterly. It's like an extension of my own mind-"

  "John-please. If not for my sake or your own, for Dian's."

  "What's the child got to do with this?"

  "She's your daughter. She hardly sees you once a week."

  "That's the price she pays for being the heir to the greatest man-I mean-damn it, Monica, my responsibilities don't permit me to indulge in all the suburban customs."

  "John-" Her voice was a whisper, painful in its intensity. "Send it away."

  "No. I won't send it away."

  Her face was pale. "Very well, John. As you wish."

  "Yes. As I wish."

  After she left the room, Mallory stood for a long time staring out through the high window at the tiny craft, hovering in the blue air fifty feet away, silent, ready.

>   Then: Ree mind, he sent out the call. Probe the apartments of the woman, Monica. I have reason to suspect she plots treason against the state…

  The Star-Sent Knaves

  1

  Clyde W. Snithian was a bald eagle of a man, dark-eyed, pot-bellied, with the large, expressive hands of a rug merchant. Round-shouldered in a loose cloak, he blinked small reddish eyes at Dan Slane's travel-stained six-foot-one.

  "Kelly here tells me you've been demanding to see me." He nodded toward the florid man at his side. He had a high, thin voice, like something that needed oiling. "Something about important information regarding my paintings."

  "That's right, Mr. Snithian," Dan said. "I believe I can be of great help to you."

  "Help how? If you've got ideas of bilking me…" The red eyes bored into Dan like hot pokers.

  "Nothing like that, sir. Now, I know you have quite a system of guards here-the papers are full of it-"

  "Damned busybodies! Sensation-mongers! If it wasn't for the press, I'd have no concern for my paintings today!"

  "Yes, sir. But my point is, the one really important spot has been left unguarded."

  "Now, wait a minute-" Kelly started.

  "What's that?" Snithian cut in.

  "You have a hundred and fifty men guarding the house and grounds day and night-"

  "Two hundred and twenty-five," Kelly snapped.

  "-but no one at all in the vault with the paintings," Slane finished.

  "Of course not," Snithian shrilled. "Why should I post a man in the vault? It's under constant surveillance from the corridor outside."

  "The Harriman paintings were removed from a locked vault," Dan said. "There was a special seal on the door. It wasn't broken."

  "By the saints, he's right," Kelly exclaimed. "Maybe we ought to have a man in that vault."

  "Another idiotic scheme to waste my money," Snithian snapped. "I've made you responsible for security here, Kelly! Let's have no more nonsense. And throw this nincompoop out!" Snithian turned and stalked away, his cloak flapping at his knees.