Kenneth Bulmer - Demons' World

“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.