Demons' World

Chapter Six

Forager Controller Wilkins pursed his full lips, his slender hands still on the papers before him on the wide desk. Wilkins was a small, dapper man, neat with dark slicked hair, wearing dull green slacks and shirt. Wilkins owned his own Foraging Corporation and was these days never likely to venture Outside. A gaudy yellow and scarlet scarf loosely knotted around his slender white throat was a scornful reminder of his position.

Stead stood before him, uneasy, trying to realize that this man was a Controller, and therefore of the class into which Stead had been reborn, but finding the task difficult and clouded by the irrational learning he had absorbed during his quarter’s training as a Forager.

The training period had been strenuous, but in it Stead had come to realize that his body had been retrained into a state of fighting fitness well-accustomed to it. In his previous life he had been a tough and powerful athlete and he had the muscles still to prove it.

Forager Leader Thorbum stood at Stead’s side.

Thorburn had stared with genuine surprise when Stead had reported in. Stead, of course, had no memory of meeting this massive-headed, grave, intense Forager, but an immediate liking for him had warmed his greeting, firmed his handclasp. Thorburn immediately forgot his notions of proprietorship, of patronage for this man and responded with a deep and joyful acceptance of friendship.

Now Wilkins tapped the papers. “I’ve agreed to take you on, Stead, through friendship for Simon—uh, Controller Bonaventura—but I warn you that if you do not act within the framework of a Forager’s duties, I shall have no hesitation in discharging you.”

Wryly, Stead heard the change in the man’s voice. He didn’t know Controller Wilkins’ off-watch name; he wondered what the man would say if, knowing it, he had used it in his own Controller’s accents before his future foraging mates. This world had many barriers he must learn to hurdle in his own way.

“You have been trained, but that means you are just beginning to learn how much you have to leam. Forager Leader Thorburn will show you. He may not welcome this assignment, but business is pressing lately; I’ve lost a number of good Hunters, and I have no time to mollycoddle you, Stead.” Wilkins looked down again at the papers.

“You have been issued a cape and it has been trained to your bloodstream. Uniform, weapons, respirator, antigrav, sack—yes… I think that’s all. The Regulations have been fully explained to you. Understand me. You go Outside for one purpose and one purpose only. To bring back to Archon the fruits of the world so that the people may live. That is all. Everything else is subordinate to that.”

But, being a Controller, Wilkins had the grace to add, “I do not forget that Thorburn, in bending that law, assured you of life, Stead. That is between the two of you. But Thorbum has been warned. Full sacks, Stead, full sacks!”

When they were outside Wilkin’s control cubicle, Thorbum said, “Phew! Let’s go and meet the gang.”

Down in the Controller’s section of the warren, Stead would have prefaced his remark with a blistering, “By all the Demons of Outside!” and gone on to express himself.

But among the Foragers and Hunters he had learned after using the expression just once, that they were not curse words. It wasn’t even a blasphemy. It was so much a part of everyday life that it had no significance, or so much deep meaning that it became inexpressible.

Copying the insolent swagger of Foragers when inside in the company of soldiers, Stead did as Thorbum did and flicked his cape grandly behind him. The cape might have been fully trained to his blood stream—getting used to the twin filaments running into the back of his neck had been irksome and, at first, revolting—but the thing’s own life was still frolicsome and it had developed a cunning little habit of drooping down and then licking gently between his legs. Four times, now, he’d been ignominiously tripped on his nose. And how his comrades at the training warren had laughed!

“You’ll soon master your cape, Stead,” Thorbum told him. “It’s a youngster. And a cape with ideas of its own is a better bet than an old worn out rag. Changes quicker. Old Chronic knows that. He’s been through a dozen capes in his time.”

^’OldChronicP”

“You’ll meet ’em all. The gang. The Foraging party I am privileged to lead into the Outside. I wouldn’t change it. It’s far better than being cooped up as a worker.”

Thorburn had changed since the forage when he had found this man who now walked along so lithely at his side, topping him by four inches or more. The changes had been within his mind and he had welcomed them. The sureness had come of itself. He no longer gave unnecessary orders on a forage; the party knew what to do and they did it. Thorbum briefed them with any new or particular instructions before they left.

Down in the Hunters’ rest rooms in the warren just inside the barrier and the blue light, a room tucked neatly into a crevice between a water pipe and an electric light conduit, Stead met them all.

Julia, big and blonde, with a flashing smile and a warmth for the new man she spilled out for everyone, proud of her prowess as a radarop, sleek limbed and gay.

Sims and Wallas, brothers in all but parentage, young, tough, doltish looking but with brains that held absolute competence in their alloted tasks.

Cardon, black browed, fierce-eyed, bitter, unrelenting, sudden, a man with a sin troubling his conscience.

Old Chronic—well, Old Chronic clicked his dentures and grinned and snorted and spluttered and demanded a whole book to himself.

And lastly, Honey. Honey of the soft, silky jet hair, the soft eyes of innocence, the soft rosebud mouth and the blooming skin of satin. Honey of the slender figure and shy smile, with a reserve of cold courage that Thorburn had seen grow and strengthen in a hundred perilous moments since that time she had cowered frightened by the window as she saw her first Demon. Honey, with the gentleness of girlhood, and a softness that concealed a core of steel.

“And this is Stead,” said Thorbum.

What were they making of him? Each in his or her own way greeted the new man. Stead knew that he unbalanced the party, that he was an added and extra risk, that through his presence all their lives might be forfeit. But he smiled and shook hands and tried to hold himself erect without arrogance. In these people’s hands reposed his own life.

“One to come, Thorbum,” said the Forager Manager, old bald and short-sighted Purvis. Once he’d tangled with a Rang single-handed and brought the carcass in, not to prove his deed but because a good Forager always came home with a full sack. “Feller called Vance. Comes from a firm of Foragers right on the other side of the warrens.”

“Yes,” said Thorbum. “As soon as he gets here we’ll step out.”

But the gang were arguing and protesting.

“No foraging party takes out more than one new man!” exploded Cardon, savage and black of brow. “What’s H. Q. playing at?”

Over the babble of protests, Manager Purvis cut them short. “If you want to argue with head office go and see Wilkins. When you’re out of a job you can starve. You know the Regulations. No job, no food. And don’t give me the old Forager tale of finding enough food Outside to be independent of the warrens. You wouldn’t last a sixth of a quarter.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Cardon darkly.

They were all held in the ritual tension of a pre-forage waiting: the old jokes were unwrapped and cracked and laughed at and put, dustily, away; the building-up meal was eaten with a relish or lack of appetite peculiar to the individual temperament; weapons were checked for the feel of something to occupy the hands; last minute reports from other foraging parties were collated into their own lead-out route.

Signals orderlies passed the blue slips through pneumatic tubes into the Hunter-waiting cubby; Old Chronic irritably read them and clicked his teeth and with his neat precise hand inked in the symbols on his map, always with a complaint. But he was a good Navigator, old as he was, or perhaps because he was old.

“I’d trust Old Chronic to find us a route through a Demon’s temple with everything in full swing,” Thorburn told Stead with an exasperated look at the old navigator. “He only just failed the finals for his geographer’s assistantship. He could never, coming from the Foraging class, be an Architectural Geographer. But we hear how often the assistants do the job while the lordly Controllers slope off.”

“I’ve never met an Architectural Geographer,” Stead said, but his interest concentrated on another thing that Thorbum had said. “You mentioned a Demon’s temple. You mean to tell me you really believe in Demons? I know Hunters and Foragers talk about them, but I’m going outside now. Isn’t it time to admit the truth?”

“And what is the truth?”

“Well, people are confused about the reasons for the Demoniac stories, but the best scientific theories now are that they were planted in men’s minds to check our natural sinfulness, to act as consciences.”

“By a Scunner’s diseased intestines!” exploded Cardon. “What rubbish they’ve been filling you with, Stead.”

Stead felt anger, anger and shame. “I only know what I’ve been told.”

“Wait until we’re outside. Then you can talk.”

Stead decided to take that advice; he shut up.

Honey picked up her wavelength log, and grimaced. “Enough changes to work my fingers sore. It’s this blasted static howling across the air that’s doing it.”

“You’ve got troubles,” Julia said, polishing her set with an entirely feminine duster. “This confounded howling is beginning to creep onto my radar frequencies. If it fouls those up—”

“We cut a beam,” Thorburn said tartly. “We cut a beam. If any of you Hunters in my party can’t scuttle fast enough to elude a Demon, you don’t belong with me.”

Everyone, as though their heads were on strings, swung to stare at Stead. He swallowed. Truly, this was an entirely new world he’d been dumped into, a world where values had been turned topsy-turvy and life, real and hot, meant more than ever it could in the rarefied levels of the Controllers’ warrens.

Purvis called into the waiting cubby. “Here’s your new man Vance, Thorbum.”

Again as though invisible strings drew them, everyone’s head swiveled to the door. This time Stead looked too.

Vance strode in, glanced keenly about, approached Thorburn with a Forager’s swagger. He glanced coldly at Stead. “Thorburn? I’m Vance. And this must be Stead.”

The new man reeked of toughness. His short, stocky body bulged his dull green Hunter’s uniform; his cape, a middleaged specimen in mature condition, clung to him with all sixteen legs in a synthesis that told of long and perfect association. His square, craggy face, dour and without humor, seemed rather to glower out on life. Beneath tufted eyebrows his eyes lurked in shadow, pitiless and unfathomable.

Stead felt an unaccountable shiver at sight of the man.

“Welcome, Vance,” said Thorburn, holding out his hand. The handshake was brief, perfunctory. Thorburn introduced the others. Even Stead, after so short an acquaintance, appreciated the strange reluctance of the exuberant Julia’s greeting. This man knew his job, but he had time for no one but himself.

When he shook hands with Stead, Stead said deliberately, “You won’t be a handicap to the party, Vance, unlike me.”

Vance did not laugh; but his thin lips moved with the ghost of what might have been a sardonic smile. “That’s why I’m here, Stead. Don’t get out of my sight.”

And the understanding that hit Stead then reduced his own stature, humbled him. This man Vance was going along as a nursemaid!

“If you’re all set?” Thorburn, without waiting for an answer picked up his gun, slung it, caught up his sacks and strode for the door. Everyone else followed his example.

Stead looked at the gun issued to him. It was not new but was less action-worn than those he had trained with. Everyone called it a splutter-gun. It fired a smallish projectile, the bullets arranged in the clip in alternate explosive and solid coned rounds. A two-handed weapon, it could be operated with one hand by any trained fighter. He hefted it, flung it. He wondered, not without a twinge of apprehension, if he would have to use it.

Honey strapped on her walkie-talkie, Julia her radar set. They slung their sacks. Old Chronic finished sharpening a pencil and slung his logs and maps. With Thorburn in the lead they stepped out of the Hunters’ waiting cubby, boarded their electric car. The soldier raised the barrier, his helmet shining under the blue light, and saluted.

The car purred away down a long echoing corridor. Stead was on his way Outside.