by Keith Laumer
"It seems we must continue another time, sirs," he said in a tone unctuous with regret. "The Sub-Commandant of Peace is waiting in the foyer. It appears that a criminal enemy of the Order is suspected of having somehow penetrated the Fornax."
"So? How does that affect us?" Dovo demanded.
"The Commandant wishes to make a physical inspection of all portions of the premises," Tace went on. "Including the private gaming areas."
"Unreasonable," Dovo snapped.
"Still, one must cooperate," Tace said, throwing the switch which unlocked the doors. "Shall we go along and observe the Bugs at work?" He smiled at his daring use of the vernacular.
"Best we close the bank first," Dovo murmured.
"Of course!" Tace poked angrily at the keys on the gaming board; a cascade of platinum-edged ten M cred-cards showered from the dispenser. Plandot counted them out, handed fifty to Dovo, the rest of the stack to Bailey/Jannock, who accepted them absently, turned to Sir Swithin. "Would you oblige me, sir? I feel the need of a moment to refresh myself." He dumped the double-handful of cash into the startled man's hands and turned toward the discretely marked door. A burst of chatter rose behind him, but no one raised objection.
25
Inside the chrome and black toilet, Bailey walked quickly past the attendant to the rear of the room, tried the narrow service door in the corner. Locked. He whirled on the soft-footed attendant who had followed him.
"Get this open!" he snapped.
"Sir?" the man prepared to lapse into dumb insolence. Bailey caught him by the tunic front, shook him once, threw him against the wall.
"Do as you're told!" he snarled. "Haven't you heard there's an enemy of the Order at large in the club?"
"S-s-sir," the man mumbled, pressing an electrokey against the slot. The door slid back. Bailey stepped through and was in a dark passage. Dim lights went up at his first step. He tried doors; the third opened on a white-walled room where half a dozen stewards lounged around a long table.
"As you were," Bailey barked as the startled servants scrambled to their feet. "Remain in this room until told to leave. You-" He stabbed with his finger at a thick-shouldered, frowning fellow with red pips on his collar who appeared to be about to speak. "Lead the way to the prefect's office!"
"Me?" the man gaped, taken aback.
"You!" Bailey strode across to the door, flicked it open. The big man lumbered past him. Bailey stepped out behind him, looked both ways; the corridor was empty. He struck once with the edge of his hand, caught the man as he collapsed. Swiftly, he checked the man's pockets, turned up a flat card to which half a dozen keys were attached. He covered the distance to the next intersection at a run, slowed to a walk rounding the corner. Two men came toward him, one an indignant-looking chap with the waxed-and-polished look Bailey had come to expect of Crusters past their first youth. The other was a small, quick-eyed man, in plain dark clothes, as out of place here in Blue Level territory as a cockroach on a silver tray. As he started past, the latter turned and put out a restraining hand. Bailey spoke first:
"What the hell are you doing standing here gossiping?" he snapped. "We're here on business, remember? What are you doing about the dead man in the cross-corridor?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction from which he had come, turned his attention to the other man, who gaped; his mouth open.
"Sir, I'll have to insist that you go along now to the lift foyer," Bailey said briskly. "If you please, sir." He made an impatient motion. The man made a gobbling noise and set off at a rapid walk. Bailey followed without looking back.
They passed half a dozen grim-faced plainclothes Peacemen; none gave them more than a glance. As they came into the circular silver-and-rose chamber where Bailey had first arrived, he halted his companion with a word. Clusters of uniformed Peacemen were grouped here and there throughout the room. Bailey pointed to a shoulder-tabbed officer.
"Tell the adjutant the snarfitar is bonfrect," he ordered. As the Cruster stiffened and opened his mouth to protest, Bailey forestalled him: "We're counting on you, sir. You and I between us will make this pinch. And whatever you do, don't look at me."
"The… snarfitar is bonfrect?" the man queried.
"Exactly; and the doolfroon have taken over the ignort."
"Doolfroon's taken over the ignort." The man hurried away, mumbling. Bailey watched the officer turn as the messenger came up; he waited until the sound of raised voices told him the message had been delivered. Then he strolled behind a group of Peacemen as they stared toward the disturbance, tried keys until one opened the lift doors, stepped into a silver-filigree decorated, white leather upholstered car, and punched the top key.
26
Bailey changed cars three times at intermediate levels, each time under the eyes of guards alert for a man descending, before he reached the tower suite. He stepped out into a mirror-walled ante-room rugged in soft gray. A wide white and silver door stood at one side. It opened at a touch. Across the room a square-faced man with carelessly combed black hair looked up with a faintly puzzled expression.
"Are you Micael Drans?" Bailey heard himself ask.
"Yes…"
Bailey made a smooth motion and the gun he had bought in another lifetime, six hours earlier, was in his hand. He raised it to point squarely at the forehead of the man behind the desk. His finger moved to the firing stud A side door burst open. A girl stood there, wide-eyed, white-gowned, elegant. In a single step she was between them, shielding the victim with her slim body. A gun in her jeweled hand was aimed at Bailey's chest.
"No, William Bailey!" she cried. "Drans mustn't die!"
27
"I remember you," Bailey said. His voice sounded blurred in his ears; the room, the girl, the man sitting rigid behind the desk had taken on a dream-like quality. "You're the girl who helped me. I never learned your name."
"Throw the gun away, William," she said urgently.
Bailey trembled, sick with the hunger of his need to shoot, restrained by the impossibility of killing the girl. "I can't," he groaned. "I have to kill him!"
"Why?" the girl demanded.
"The voice," he said, remembering. "In the Euthanasia Center, it told me how to control my circulation to keep the drug from paralyzing my heart, how to make my legs work enough to carry me out through the service door. It told me to come here, shoot Micael Drans! I have to kill him! Stand aside! I'll kill you if I have to!"
"William," the girl's voice was low, urgent. "Micael Drans is more important than you can dream-than even he dreams." She spoke over her shoulder to the waiting and watching man. "Micael-something very important has happened within the last few hours." It was a statement, not a question. Drans nodded slowly. "Yes." He seemed calm, merely puzzled.
"A message," the girl said. "A message from very far away."
A look of incredulity came over Drans' face. "How could you know of that, Aliea?"
"The message is genuine," the girl said in an intense voice. "Believe it, Micael!" Bailey listened, feeling the sweat trickling down the side of his face. His heart thudded dully.
"I think I understand part of it, William," the girl went on. "You received a part-but I received the rest! You knew what-and I knew why. I made my way here-just as you did. I didn't understand, then-but now I do! And you must, too!"
"I have to kill him-"
"I can shoot first, William," she said steadily. "You're confused, under terrible stress. I'm not. You must try to understand. Perhaps…" She broke off. "William, close your eyes. Concentrate. Let me try to reach you…!"
Like an automaton, he followed instructions. Blackness. Swirling light. Out of the darkness, a shape that hovered, a complex structure of light that was not light, a structure incomplete, needing him to complete it. He moved toward it, sensing how the ragged surfaces of his own being reached out to meet and merge with its opposite Light blossomed like a sudden dawn. All barriers fell. Her mind lay open to him.
Now come, William, her voice
spoke in his brain. I'll lead you… He followed along a dark path that plunged down, down, through terrible emptiness…
And emerged into-somewhere. He was aware of the compound ego-matrix that was himself, Bailey/Aliea; saw all the foreshortened perspective of his narrow life, her pinched, love-starved existence. And saw the presence that had reached out, touched him/her. And abruptly, he/she was that other presence.
28
He lay in darkness, suffering. Not the mere physical pain of the wasted, ancient body; that was nothing. But the ceaseless, relentless pain of the knowledge of failure, the bitterness of vain regret for the irretrievable blunder of long ago.
Then, out of despair, a concept born of anguish; the long struggle, probing back down along the closed corridor along which he had come, searching, searching; and at last the first hint of success, the renewed striving, the moment of contact with the feeble, flickering life-mote that glowed so faint and far away:
WILLIAM BAILEY! LISTEN TO ME! YOU MUST NOT DIE! THERE IS THAT WHICH MUST BE DONE, AND ONLY YOU CAN DO IT! LISTEN: THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST DO…"
29
The girl still stood, aiming the weapon at his heart. Tears ran down her face, but the gun did not waver.
"It was the voice," Bailey said. "You and I were… linked. We… touched him, were him. He's the one who made me live, sent me here. Who was he? What was he?"
"He's a man, William. A dying man, a hundred years in the future. In some way that perhaps not even he understands, he projected his mind back along his own life line-to us."
"A mind-reaching back through time?" Bailey asked.
"I think he meant only to reach one man, to explain the terrible thing that had happened, to enlist your help to do what he believed had to be done to right the wrong. But his brain was too powerful, too complex. An ordinary mind couldn't encompass it. I was near-on the Intermix, ready to jump. A part of his message spilled over-into my mind. I saw what had happened, what would happen-saw who and where you were, knew that I had to help you-but I didn't know-didn't understand what it was you were to do."
"A message," Bailey said, remembering the flood of impressions. "A transmission from a point in space beyond Pluto. A ship-heading for Earth. Aliens-from a distant star. They asked for peace and friendship. And we gave them-death."
Drans spoke up, his voice strained. "When did we attack?"
"Sarday, Sember twenty," Bailey said. "Black Sarday."
"Tomorrow's date," Drans said in a voice like cracked metal.
"And Micael Drans was the man who gave the order!" Bailey blurted. "Don't you see, Aliea? That's why he sent me here, why Drans has to die!"
"For three days and three nights I've wrestled with it," Drans said dully. "Pro and con, trust or mistrust, kill-or welcome. There are so many factors to consider, so terrible a risk…"
"And you decided: it had to be death, because how could man, who had betrayed his own species, trust another race?" Bailey accused.
"Is it possible?" Drans stared from Aliea to Bailey. "Can you know the future? In some miraculous way, were you sent here to save me from this terrible decision? Can we trust them? Are they what they say?"
"They come as friends," Aliea said softly.
Drans stood. "I believe you," he said. "Because the alternative is too bitter to contemplate." He stepped forward, gently thrust the girl aside. "Do your duty," he said flatly to Bailey.
"William-no!" Aliea said swiftly. "You know now, don't you? You see?"
Bailey looked at the defenseless man before him. He lowered the gun, nodded.
"The voice-the dying man, a hundred years from now. It was-is-will be you: Micael Drans. You sent me back to kill yourself before you gave the death order."
"Only a very good man would have done that, William," Aliea said. "Micael Drans is one of the few good men alive in these vicious times. He has to live-to meet the ship, welcome the aliens to our world!"
"Will you do it?" Bailey asked.
"Why-yes. Yes, of course!" Life came back into Drans' face. He turned to his desk, spoke rapidly into an intercom.
Bailey opened his fingers, let the gun fall to the floor. He felt suddenly empty, exhausted. It was all meaningless now, a vista of blown dust, crumbling ashes.
"William-what is it?" Aliea's face wavered before him. "It's all right now. It's over. You did it. We did it."
"A puppet," Bailey said. "That's all I was. I served my purpose. There's nothing left. I'm back where I was."
"Oh no!" Aliea cried. "William, you're wrong, so wrong!"
"For the first time in my life, I had pride, self-respect. I thought it was me who invaded Preke territory and stayed alive, absorbed an education, sweated out the Maxpo treatment. I believed it was me, William Bailey, who faced down the Crusters on their own turf, bluffed them all, took what I wanted, made my way here. But it wasn't. It was him, guiding me every step of the way. And now it's over, and there's nothing left."
Aliea smiled, shaking her head. "No, William. Think, remember! He gave you a mission, true. And one other thing he did: he took away fear. The rest you did yourself."
Bailey frowned at her. "I was like a man in a dream, all those weeks. That complex plan, the twisting and turning, the bluffs and the chances I took-"
"Don't you see? He couldn't have planned it all. He had no way of knowing what would happen, how you should meet what came. It was you, William. Once fear is gone, all things are possible."
"Aliea's right," Micael Drans said. He came around the desk to stand beside them. "There's no way for me to thank you. But in eighteen hours, the Evala ship will take up its orbit beyond Luna-peacefully. There will be much to be done. I'll need help. Will you stay, accept positions on my personal staff?"
"Of course," Aliea said.
"If you really think-if I can be of any use…" Bailey said.
He felt Aliea's hand touch his-felt the touch of her mind, delicate as a blown feather. Together, we'll do it, William.
"Yes," he said. "I'll stay."
We must tell him, Aliea's thought spoke in his mind. Bailey closed his eyes; together they reached out across the void, found him, waiting there in darkness.
Together, they waited for the sound of a new thunder in the skies of Earth.
Afterword
by Eric Flint
It's a bit odd, I suppose, to include "Of Death What Dreams" in a volume consisting of stories dealing with alien contacts with human-which is the "theme" of A Plague of Demons Other Stories. But, since that is technically the point of the story, I decided it was appropriate enough. And, by putting it at the very end, it allowed me in this afterword to segue nicely into the next, upcoming volume in Baen Books' reissue of the writings of Keith Laumer. (The fancy term "segue" being used here, of course, as a slick alternative to "shamelessly promote.")
Yes, technically "Of Death What Dreams" is a story about alien contact. Beneath that superficial crust, however, it's really a type of story-and one of the best-in which Keith Laumer truly excelled: what are usually called "dystopias." The impending arrival of the aliens, after all, only appears in "Of Death What Dreams" in the last of 29 sections. The heart of the story is the hero's adventures through the callous and stratified world dominated by the Crusters.
I am not, as a rule, particularly fond of dystopias. Some of that is simply my own temperament. But, mainly, it's because most authors who write dystopias tend to lose themselves in the setting. The story itself, as a rule, is just a device upon which to hang a distorted universe; it's not so much a story as a contrivance. All of which is another slick and fancy way to avoid saying what I really think, which is this:
Most dystopias, goddamit, are just plain boring.
***
Keith Laumer is one of the few exceptions. He could spin off dystopias with the best of them-but, with Laumer, the setting rarely if ever takes over the story itself. At the heart of his dystopian tales is the usual full-speed-ahead narrative of which Laumer was the master. What results ar
e stories which, however creepy or disturbing the setting may be, are enjoyable to read-instead of being the literary equivalent of root canal work.
I invite you to test my hypothesis for yourselves. The fifth volume of this reissue of the writings of Keith Laumer will be coming out soon, under the title of Future Imperfect. The book will begin with one of Laumer's classic adventure stories, a novel called Catastrophe Planet (also published under the title The Breaking Earth), in which the hero races across a world fractured by tectonics gone mad in order to save the day. Included also will be a half dozen of Laumer's best shorter works: the long novella "The Day Before Forever" as well as "Cocoon," "Worldmaster," "The Walls," "Founder's Day" and "Placement Test."
You'll have fun. Honest.
THE END
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A Plague of Demons
Table of Contents
A Plague of Demons
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Thunderhead
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