Kenneth Bulmer - Demons' World

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.