A Plague of Demons

"RENEGADE UNIT! HALT AND SUBMIT OR BE DESTROYED."

For a moment I hesitated, ready to pour my fire into the aliens-a move that would mean nothing but my instant annihilation. And the machines that faced me were no more than helpless pawns-slaves of the Over-mind. I would have to surrender. My freedom had been short-and had gained me nothing.

We came in between high walls built in the shadow of a mighty ringwall that towered thousands of feet into the black sky. From embrasures on all sides, the snouts of heavy guns thrust down, covering a bleak, half-mile-square enclosure. I rolled forward, felt the Centurion's control withdraw. Guns still trained on me, the Centurion and his squad backed through the ponderous entry-gate. A portcullis of massive spikes rose up to bar the exit.

I surveyed my prison, saw a scarred combat unit parked by the featureless wall at its far side. I was not the only erring trooper of the monster Brigades, it seemed. Perhaps here was another rebel-another mind that had freed itself from enemy control.

On impulse I reached out, tried for contact with the lone unit. I found the familiar pattern of conditioned reaction, probed deeper-and encountered a shield of total opacity. Not even the mighty Over-mind had resonated with such overtones of mental power as this impervious barrier…

Then I felt the probe of the stranger's mind reach out to me. Instantly, I erected a resistance-and still the intruder pressed me. I retreated, withdrew awareness to my innermost identity center… and felt the touch of the other's mind, questing, probing. I gathered my forces, prepared a maximum counter-blast…

With a sudden thrust, the newcomer penetrated my defenses and confronted me.

"Gosh," a familiar voice exclaimed in my mind. "What're you doin' here, Jones?"

Chapter Fourteen

"That's how it was, Jones," Joel said. "For a while I just watched; I looked at the country and tried to figure out where I was. All I knew, I was Unit One Hundred of the line-and I was Joel, too. But everything was different. There was fighting going on 'bout all the time. I got to worrying maybe I'd get hurt; this new body I got's tough, but a direct hit could knock it out-I saw it happen to others. I tried to talk to some of 'em after I got the knack of it-but all they knew was their number and the orders of the day.

"Then one day I just ducked out; there was so many units in the fight I didn't figure anybody'd notice. But they jumped me fast. I been here ever since-dunno how long."

"How many times has the planet crossed the sky since you woke up?"

"Maybe six or seven. 'Bout four since I been in the brig."

"You've been here all that time-and nothing's happened yet?"

"Nope, I figured maybe they forgot about me."

"I don't think time means the same thing to them as it does to us."

"This is a funny-looking place, ain't it, Jones? The sun's funny-and the moon, too."

"Joel, I don't know how much time we'll have-but I have a feeling that when the current battle is settled, the Over-mind will be along to dissect us some more-to find out why we didn't work. I think it assumes we're just a variation on a routine malfunction. It doesn't seem to have any emotions-they aren't out for revenge for the Centurion I killed-but if they knew we were in full control of our bodies, we'd have been blasted instead of captured."

"Who are they, Jones-the Command-minds and the Over-mind-all those voices I hear in my head?"

"They're the masters of the dog-things. They're fighting a war-the devil knows what it's about. For some reason they're using this moon as a battleground-and we're a convenient source of computer circuits."

"The ones they're fighting-they're just as bad," Joel said. "I got close to 'em once-nearly got cut off. I put out a feeler to one-wanted to see what he was like. I figured maybe if he was against the Command-voice, maybe I'd change sides. But it was-it was horrible, Jones. Kind of like… well, like some of the old ladies that used to come around the Seaman's Welfare. They was so bound to do good, they'd kill you if you got in their way. It's like hell comes in two colors-black and white."

"We need information, Joel. We're as ignorant as new-born babies. For a while, I didn't even know how fast time was going by. We move fast-we can run through a fifty-thousand-item checklist in a second or two. But I still don't know how big I am. I feel light-but I suppose that's just because of the lesser gravity."

"I can tell you how big we are, Jones. Come on." I watched as the great battle-machine that had been Joel backed, turned, started off along the wall. I followed. At the far end of the compound, at the junction of the barrier wall with a massive squat tower, he stopped.

"Look there," he said. I examined the ground, noted the broken rubble, a heap of scattered objects like fragments of broken spaghetti, loose dust drifted against the coarse, unjointed wall.

"See them little sticks that got a kind of glow to 'em?" Joel said.

"Sure." Then I recognized what I was looking at. "My God!"

"Funny, ain't it? Them skulls don't look no bigger'n marbles; leg-bones look like they might belong to a mouse. But they're full-sized human bones, Jones. It's us that's off. We must be, well, 'bout-well, I can't count that high…"

"They look about twelve inches; my picture of myself is about twelve feet to my upper turret. I can multiply that by six; that makes us seventy-two feet high!"

"Jones-could you teach me to count them big numbers? You know, it's funny-but seems like I missed learnin' a lot of things, back when-when I was just a man."

"You've changed, Joel. You think about things a lot more than you used to."

"I know, Jones. It's like I used to be sort of half asleep or something. I can't remember much about it-back there. It's all kind of gray and fuzzy. There's lots of things I want to know now-like numbers-but in those days, I never even asked."

"Joel, how did you get the wound you had on your forehead?"

"Yeah-I remember; there was a sore place-it hurt, all the time. Gosh, I forgot all about them headaches! And it was kind of pushed in, like… I don't know how I got that, Jones. I never used to even wonder about it."

"It was a badly depressed fracture; probably bone fragments pressing on your brain. The pressure's gone now. It must have been the repressed part of your brain, coming up again, that let you throw off the aliens' control."

"It's kind of funny, the way I can look inside my own thinkin' now, Jones. Seems like I can sort of watch my brains like; I can see just how things work."

"We've been conditioned. The demons set up a network of introspection circuits for their own use-and we can still use them!"

"They don't do us much good, long as we're stuck here. These walls are tough. I tested 'em a little; they didn't give at all. Maybe if we fired at 'em, we could knock a hole through."

"Maybe there's an easier way." I reached out toward the gate, found the cybernetic control circuitry, probed, fired signals; massive tumblers stirred, then an alarm went off-a shriek of pure mental power, slicing out across distance to alert the aliens.

"Oh-oh-that did it!" Joel called.

I wheeled toward the gate. "Try your guns, Joel!" Together, we raced for the barrier, pouring fire into the massive chromalloy grid. I saw it glow to red heat-but it held.

We churned to a halt. "We've got to get out of here," I shouted. "That siren will bring them on the run!"

"There's not many units around here now," Joel said. "Just two parked outside the gate, and they're kind of asleep like. There was a Brigade near here awhile back, but they just stayed awhile and moved on."

I reached out, sensed the two machines dozing on low alert. "I tried to control a couple of units once-it didn't work. But I've learned a few tricks since then. Maybe-"

"Maybe what, Jones?"

"I don't know-but I'm going to try something and see what happens."

I reached out to the dull glow of the idling mind-field, formed in my mind an image of the mental voice of the Centurion Zixz.

"Combat unit! Damage report!" I thundered.

"All systems functional," came the instant reply.

"Situation report!" I demanded.

"Unit Six of the line, standing by on low alert."

I reached for the other mind, touched it; it identified itself as Unit Seven of the Brigade of Ognyx.

"Units Six and Seven! Open fire on compound gate!" I roared.

"Acknowledged," came the instant reply. Almost at once, the ground rocked under me; I saw the gate bulge, leap in its mountings. A fragment broke loose from the wall, fell, and drove dust up in a blinding cloud.

"Give it all you've got, Joel!"

I opened up and pounded the gate; its protective field absorbed energies, bled them off in flaring corona of radiation. The metal glowed white, then blue-then, like a conjuror's illusion, puffed into radiant gases, dissipating explosively.

"Cease fire!"

Joel and I raced past the white-hot stumps of the vaporized grid, out onto the shattered plain. Half a mile distant, the two immense combat units sat, white-hot guns still bearing on their target.

"Units Six and Seven!" I transmitted as I barreled past. "You are now under the Command code 'Talisman.' Your primary function will be the protection and assistance of Units Eighty-four and One hundred. You will not report the existence of Talisman to any Command unit. Fall in and follow me."

I saw the two huge machines obediently start up, wheel into line, come up to speed. Together, our small force hurtled across the stark desert under the blue light of an alien world.

"Hey, that was neat, Jones," Joel called. "Where we going now?"

"There's an underground depot a few miles from here. Let's see if we can reach it before they cut us off."

The aliens were a dust cloud far to the east. We angled west, crossed a range of broken ground dotted with burned-out hulks, raced past the upthrust fault line where the dead Centurion Zixz still held his silent vigil at the cliffhead. We drove for the crater wall. Monitoring the command band, I heard the clamor of orders, an exchange of queries among Command units. I caught an order hurled at the guards I had captured: