Demons' World

Chapter Fourteen

They were all pleased to see him, of course, even if their first greetings held a note of restraint.

A twinge of nostalgia afflicted Stead peculiarly as he stared around the old familiar laboratory. Here lay his earliest memories, the beginning of his life with the People of Archon, his first fumbling attempts to learn and understand.

He had traveled a long way since then.

“I don’t know why you’ve come here to see us, Stead,” said Simon, nervous and fidgety. “The situation is very serious. The Captain is considering taking the very gravest measures.”

“What can he do?” demanded Stead with the new arrogance of the emancipated Forager. “We… that is, the Foragers, have simply cut off all supplies to the warrens. When the people have no more food, they will be only too happy to talk sense.”

“Stead!” exclaimed Delia, shocked.

“I thought so,” said Cargill uglily. He put hand on his gunbutt. “He’s nothing but a filthy Forager now!”

“Wait, Cargill.” Simon could still exercise his authority. “Let us hear why Stead did come to see us. Or—” He glanced sideways at Delia and licked his lips.

Stead made no comment on that.

“I came for one very simple reason. In the present situation that we know is grave, I believe that the power of science is our only hope.”

“If more people believed that,” said Simon tartly, “maybe this trouble would never have begun.”

Stead shook his head. “No. You’re wrong there. The present revolution is no fault of science’s; but it can be stopped. It started because you Controllers have been too selfish, blind, arrogant in everything.” He waved them to silence, anxious to sweep away their misconceptions. “I, too, feel like a Controller, but only in the good things, in the manners, the graces, the open-mindedness. In everything else I know, now, that the Controllers are an incubus on the backs of the workers and the Foragers.”

He let them babble denials and angry counter accusations.

Then he chopped them off brutally. “The Foragers hold you in the palms of their hands. But I have no wish to see my friends killed, deprived of their lives and liberty, even sent to work or become Foragers.”

Cargill shuddered at that.

“There are many more workers than Foragers, and more Foragers than Controllers. The soldiers, Cargill, are with us solidly in a fraternal spirit of revolution; nothing you or your fellow-officers can say or do will alter that.”

Simon stared at him, his mouth drooping a little, the weariness and disillusion strong across his face.

“Tell us your terms, then, Stead. I assume you have come as some sort of delegate?”

Stead shook his head. “No. I am here as a private individual. You seem to forget that I was brought up here, with you as teachers, as a Controller. I cannot forget that. I am shoulder to shoulder with the Foragers in this revolution. But I seek a compromise.”

“Ah!” said Simon. “I take it you do have some position with the Foragers.”

“I am a member of an action committee, if that means anything.”

“You could get a message to the leader?”

“Yes.”

Both Simon and Cargill went off into a long and involved discussion about the possibilities. Delia looked at Stead. He ignored her gaze, troubled, recognizing in him the craven fear of saying what he had come to say. He had been avoiding the issue, talking of the Foragers’ Revolution as though that was the most important new factor to influence life in Archon. By a Scunner’s infected intestines! They must have had revolutions before.

“Listen!” he said, loudly, explosively, vulgarly.

They stopped talking, jerked out of their planning, swiveled to look at him.

He wet his lips. Delia was staring as though he was a madman. Well, he supposed he was, in their eyes.

“I’ve been Outside. I’ve seen… I’ve seen—”

Cargill sneered nastily. “We’ve all been outside, Stead. I suppose you had to run from a Scunner.”

“I don’t forget you saved our lives from that Scunner, Cargill. You mentioned a Rang. Ever seen one?”

“What?” Cargill blustered. “Why… well… that is—”

“I have, Cargill.” Stead spoke softly. “I have. I helped to kill it. It wasn’t pleasant.”

“Oh, Stead!” said Delia, on a breath.

“I’ve been Outside,” Stead said again. “Out beyond this sham little world of walls and runnels hidden in the earth behind greater walls.”

Simon put a shaking hand to his lips. “What do you mean, Stead?”

“I’ve seen a Demon!”

Silence.

Then Cargill swung a contemptuous hand. “Rubbish! He’s a typical brainless Forager, trying to impress us with his fairy stories. Nannies frighten their children with stories of Demons. Grow up, Stead!”

“I’ve seen a Demon,” Stead repeated viciously. “And I know what they are. I know what Demons are and I know what mankind is. And the story isn’t pretty, it isn’t glorious, it doesn’t make us all great heroes; you won’t like what I’m going to tell you.”

The wouldn’t let him tell them at first. They told him he was just a petty-minded braggart, trying to impress them.

Like all Foragers, aware of his inferior social position, he sought any unlikely and ego-boosting story to prove his difference, his superiority. They had no time for phantasms and legends.

He let them run on. They could not be expected to understand at once, but he was frighteningly determined to make them see, to hold them until they did see.

Then, in a controlled, clipped, concise voice he told them what had happened to him since he had left them. He told them everything. When he had finished the white-lit laboratory rang with his words; but the three people facing him sat, pale-faced, trembling, not wanting to believe, and yet transfixed despite themselves by his sincerity, his honesty of purpose, his frankness.

“It can’t be,” whispered Delia.

“I don’t know.” Simon stood up, paced restlessly. “I’ve always believed that Demons could exist, that there might be something in the stories, but… but this!”

“Just a miserable runnel of parasites!” growled Cargill. “Stealing discarded crumbs from the tables of the Demons, raiding their larders—no. By all the Demons of Outside! No!”

“Yes, Cargill.” Stead spoke levelly. “Yes!”

“But if this is true, it means—”

“It means what you’ve just said. That man is a rat in the world of the Demons. That’s all. But that doesn’t alter the facts. The Demons are just one form of life, like a cat or a Scunner or a Yob. All of them, all… are inferior to mankind!”

“Then—” said Simon, a new light breaking over his face.

“You are a scientist, Simon, and so is Delia. Cargill is a soldier. You can accept this new information. You can evaluate it, find it’s truth, and then go on to plan means to alter it.” Stead’s voice blazed conviction now. “But my comrades of the outside? The Foragers? And the workers in the warrens? No. They couldn’t take this. Their minds wouldn’t take the strain. A few, a rare few like Thorbum, know and live with the knowledge. But that isn’t good enough for a scientist. We don’t want to go on living merely accepting the situation. We—”

“We must change it!” Delia stood up, her whole figure expressing conviction and dedication to this new aim in her life.

T must convene a meeting,” said Simon. “I do believe you, Stead, now. My whole life becomes a mockery to me, but I intend to convince my colleagues. We will form an anti-Demon front. We can overthrow them!”

“Who shall we contact first?” asked Delia.

Cargill shook his head dazedly. His tongue kept licking his lips, furtively. “I don’t know!” he said, over and over. “I don’t know. It’s blasphemous. The immortal being would never create that sort of world!”

As Simon contacted selected scientists, Delia and Stead tried to calm Cargill. The soldier had reacted pathologically to the information of his position in the scheme of things in the world. But his very reaction told the others that he believed. And, believing, the balance of his mind had been dangerously disturbed. A proud, arrogant, confident man couldn’t face that sort of truth except in the spirit of absolute humility. There would be others like that.

Questioning, apprehensive, aware of the revolutionary threat ravening at the barriers, the scientists answered Simon’s call. Astroman Nav arrived. Shown the usual deference accorded him, he smiled at Stead quite warmly, shook hands.

“So the Captain’s plan worked, then?” he said by way of greeting. “The Crew guessed that the shock of Outside would bring your memory back.” He turned benignly on Delia. “Well, my dear, and what is he? You have done well to bring his memory back, but I wonder if, now, he will still want to be an Astroman.”

“My memory has not returned,” Stead said bluntly. “And plan or no plan of the Captain’s, he left me to rot out there. Now, listen to Simon.”

The shock of this ungracious speech outraged the listening scientists. But Simon quietened them, began to talk. And, as was inevitable with a second-hand dissemination of the truth, he was met by a blank and stony refusal to credit what he was saying.

At least Stead intervened, angry, persuasive, telling the whole story over again. One or two of the younger men and women wavered; some believed him now. The session became protracted, prolonged, arguing and talking and planning long into the night. But the guiding light of science prevailed. Above all, these people wanted to know. They could accept anything, if they could know the truth.

The food supply position had not yet reached a serious shortage and the Controllers with their vast reserves were still eating and drinking as usual. During one meal break with arguments still raging as the men and women ate standing before long buffet tables hastily organized by Delia, a low growling rumble vibrated through the laboratory. The electric lights shook on their cables. Someone dropped a plate. Dust suddenly appeared in the air, irritating nostrils and throats.

The distant rumbling disturbances lasted for perhaps half a minute. Then, in the wordless silence, everyone heard the soft furtive slither of rock. Then that, too, faded to silence.

“Another earthquake,” said one eminent scientist. “We could do without one of those at this juncture.”

A puzzled frown creased Stead’s weary face. He turned to Simon.

“Earthquake, Simon? You’ve told me about them, I know. But… but surely that noise came from above us?”

Simon laughed, a little nervously, trying to retain his composure. “I thought so too, Stead. But that is the usual impression one receives. The sound waves travel vast distances, you know.”

Then the hubbub of argument, denunciation, pleading, planning, broke out again. Simon had placed trusted guards from the ranks of the young scientists who believed Stead on all doors. Everyone knew that they had to reach a decision—a fairly unanimous decision—before they would be free to go. Most of them welcomed that. Cargill sat in a corner, dazed, believing and unable in the young pride of his military strength to take that knowledge and grow in stature with it.

Delia said of him, sadly, “I always thought that soldiers were resilient, but now I see that their brains are channeled in a groove of unthinking discipline.”

Stead remembered the soldiers’ fight against the soldiers of Trychos. Dismal and sad though that had been, one could snatch a fierce pride at the courage of soldiers in action. But he did not answer Delia on that; he took her arm and steered her out of the main laboratory and along the corridor that led to his old suite.

The ground vibrated gently about them as they walked.

T couldn’t say this with all the others kicking up all that row. But you’ve got to help me, Delia. The human race stands at a critical point in its history. And, crazy, paranoiac, swollen-headed though this may sound, I know that I have a part to play.”

She did not laugh or deride him, understanding what he meant. “Go on.”

He looked at the ground, his eyes clouded, his face slack now, loose with the emotions trying to find expression.

“I am absolutely convinced that I can play a decisive part. Perhaps, I think certainly, the most important part. Everything that has happened has conspired to thrust me forward, into a destiny that at first I did not want, but that now I know is my duty.”

“What convinced you, Stead?”

He walked on a space as the distant rumblings died away. “I keep getting the niggling, split-second, hazy idea that I was sent here for that purpose. I feel that I am in this world but not of it. And I know, Delia, that these feelings are originated by my lost memory, battering at the closed doors of my consciousness, trying to break through, trying to make me remember!”

Delia nodded. Her red lips pursed up as though she had come to a decision. They walked side by side into Stead’s still unoccupied suite. The place brought back happy memories, but he turned a troubled face to Delia as she sat on the low divan. She tucked her long legs up underneath her, closed her eyes for a second, then began to speak.

“We are dealing with three separate yet connected phenomena.” She ticked them off. “One, the Foragers’ Revolution. Two, the anti-Demon Crusade. Three, your lost memory.”

“And,” said Stead vehemently. “My lost—”

“Yes.” She interrupted, speaking with forceful gravity. “Yes, Stead. Your lost memory is the most important of the three.”

“It sounds crazily paranoiac,” Stead said softly, scarcely crediting the validity of it himself.

She shook her head. She patted the divan. “Sit here.” As he sat her perfume wafted disturbingly over him. She was wearing a perfectly normal white lab smock. It buttoned all the way up the front. Her short red curls glistened in the electrics. Her eyes shone gray and candid in that light, unfathomable, depthless, regarding him from puckered eyebrows with a look at once distant and warmly appraising.

“We have had workers’ Revolutions before, and Foragers’, too. The Controllers always win; I see no reason why they should not now.” She stopped him with an uplifted finger. “Uh, uh. But we have never yet faced the situation you have brought to us. I expect other men have found out the truth, other people who had looked down on the Demons’ houses and seen them whole. Our Architectural Geographers haven’t ventured outside the warrens for generations.”

“Yes! I expect that must be so. But why didn’t they spread the news? I can understand Thorbum remaining silent, but surely a man of education would see what must be done?”

“That is why I believe you! You are different from us. Your memory holds the clue.” The ceiling suddenly quivered. Pieces of plaster fell; dust tasted flat and limey on their tongues. Delia gripped his arm.

“Stead!”

“That must have been a big one.” He went to stand up, but Delia held on to him. He was conscious of her quick, shallow breathing. Twin spots of carmine flamed in her cheeks.

“We ought to find out.”

“No. Stead… don’t leave me alone!”

He stared at her, astonished. This did not sound like the (rim, practical scientist. That strange upper part of her body heaved now in tumult; her eyes were enormous. “I’m not going to leave you, Delia. But this earthquake. The roof might fall in.”

“The roof could fall in all over the world; where could you go to escape it?”

“Why… why, Outside, I suppose.”

“You say you’ve never been out to the Outside Thorbum told you of. Our people couldn’t face that Outside, not yet, Stead. They’d all contract rooflessness.”

“That!” Stead remembered that, and hastily thrust it aside.

The shaking of the room became a regular, drumming beat, each solid shock following on at regular, slow, maddening moments. Each interval between maximum effect lasted for about five minutes. Then the shaking and quivering would build up, the room tipped, plaster fell, and slowly the chaos subsided.

“There’s intelligence behind this.” Stead again tried to stand up and this time succeeded, dragging Delia with him. She put both her hands on his back and clutched him, her head resting on his breast. “Intelligence… and that means—”

“Demons!” Delia said in a choked voice. Her whole body shook. The fear struck up out of her alive and livid and horrible.

“Delia!” Stead put a hand under her chin, lifted her face. She had not been crying, but the fear danced naked on that beautiful face. “Delia,” he said again, soft voiced, wonderingly.

“I’m frightened, Stead. Demons! Real… true! And they’re digging down to us, digging us out like rats in a hole. Oh, Stead, I’m frightened!”

Panic threatened to claw Stead into red ruin, then, but he fought it down. For something to do, something to occupy a brief moment, he reached out, with Delia clinging to him, and switched on the radio.

“There might be some news.”

Another tremor began, shook the room like a Rang shaking a Yob, receded. The radio said, “… everyone to help. Shoring parties to repair and buttress roofs. Parties to clear rubble. Electric lines to be repaired. Everyone must help. The Captain has complete confidence. The immortal being is sending us a test. We must measure up to that.”

The radio babbled on, telling of rock falls, cave-ins, the hideous long-drawn-out rumble of a rock slide, the most terrible sound an underground dweller can hear.

Delia clung to Stead and the roof fell in on them.

Through the smoke and dust, the choking blindness, Stead realized he was lying athwart Delia, the divan crushed beneath them. She lay there, breathing still, her eyes wide open, her mouth in a blasphemous parody of a smile. The buttons had ripped away from her lab smock and it had been twisted aside. He saw black lace, narrow straps, white flesh, flushed rosy now and all powdered with the acrid dust from the fallen plaster.

“This isn’t how I’d planned it,” she whispered. “But—”

Her arms tightened on his neck. All the fear had fled from her eyes. He had a moment’s shocked remembrance of Belle, and how she had said, “This!” And then his lips touched Delia’s, clung, moved, parted. Her tongue touched his. Something was happening to him. Great world-shaking rumblings ravaged the room, the divan, but they could have been bursting out from within him as much as the Demons digging down to kill him.

He drew his head back, gaping for air. Delia lay, limp and yielding, but vibrant now with the key to that mystery that had mocked and eluded him for so long. Without understanding why he did it, he reached out, pulled away that black lace, snapped the narrow straps.

“Oh, Stead!” Delia sobbed. Her arms pressed him down with a ferocious strength that filled with a joy he still did not comprehend.

The dusty white lab smock lay discarded. His armor rang and the buckles squealed. The radio babbled on: “Heavy falls all over the warrens. Boiling water is pouring in everywhere. Poison gas on a scale never known before. The immortal one aid us! The boiling water is… it’s coming in! It’s steaming, boiling, scalding. It’s—”

Stead didn’t hear. His spirit fused with Delia’s and blinding lights pulsated in his eyes, glorious music cascaded into his ears. A moment of absolute truth would be reached in which he could forget everything save the miracle his body wrought, at any second. Now… now—

A beam, dislodged from the cracked roof, fell shrewdly across the back of his head.

There came no climax, only a deep drifting blackness that took him away into nothingness.