Kenneth Bulmer: Demons' World

Thorburn! The Foragers! Honey!

Were they all right? Cursing, Cochrane’s skipper levered himself out of bed, pressing the call button.

The orderly who answered brought with her Doctor Hejaz. Hejaz, a roly-poly little man with a prim mouth, soft womanly hands of immense strength, an understanding of a man’s insides that came from par sees of spacefaring and space-doctoring, sat calmly down on the bed.

“Well, skipper. You really believe in delving into the new planet’s underworld.”

“Huh,” said Captain Tait. “Tell me what happened. But, first, there are some Foragers I want looked up.”

“If you mean Thorburn and Honey and the gang, they were brought to Cochrane an hour or so after you and Miss Hope, here.”

“What the—”

“You talked, skipper.”

“I see. Well, your conscience is like a blasted monk’s, so I don’t envisage blackmail. Now, tell me.”

“We picked up your signals loud and clear. I can say that everyone felt awful about not being able to reassure you. We found the right house—enormous places, these Samian cities—and the folks, a decent enough old couple, were busily pottering with their kettles of boiling water and their rat poison. The old chap was digging away and cursing the pilfering thieves who’d pinched all his best cheeses and like that.”

“The Corps is never going to let me forget this,” said Tait, morosely.

“I had a look at their lad. The one whose eye you messed up. I think with a spot of Terrestrial medicine and surgery, he’ll regain his sight.”

“Thank heavens for that. That was one thing that worried me, made me feel miserable.”

“Went after you with a knife as big as a picket boat, I gather. Well, can’t say I blame you, skipper.”

“But the Samians are such decent gentle people. The Demons—well, the Demons were—”

“The Demons,” said Delia’s voice, “are real, at last. I’ll giant you that, Stead.”

“You all right, Delia?”

“She’ll be fine.” Hejaz smiled. “Oh, and, Skipper, in case you’re wondering. The human people of Samia are just that Homo sapiens. They must have descended from a Solterran colonist venture.”

“A damn long time ago. Imagine how they got on in the beginning! Ugh, makes your flesh creep.”

“You mean—What do you mean?” asked Delia.

Simon, from the bed the other side, chimed in with, “I think we have more to learn than that the Demons are real, Delia.”

“Say, Doc,” said the skipper. “Bring in the Foragers, will you? If we’re to explain, I’d like to do it to an audience of friends.”

When they were all seated, Thorbum, Julia, Sims and Wallas, Vance, fierce Cardon whose revolution had been swallowed up in a world-shaking event, and even Old Chronic, clacking his dentures, Tait looked around for Honey. She stood at the foot of his bed, hesitant, shy, her silky black hair shining wonderfully now in the lights. He smiled encouragingly at her and she sat down on the bed, next to Hejaz. She hadn’t looked at Delia, and Delia’s patrician face had frowned slightly at sight of the slender girl.

Tait explained it to them, all about the Galaxy and Sol-terra and how mankind had set off on his great adventure among the stars and how their long-gone ancestors had come to this planet of Samia and hadn’t quite got off on the right foot. It took some digesting.

“That’s why the Evolutionary Theory and the Uniqueness of Man stumped you. Cats and Dogs and Men, with four limbs and a common ancestry. All the rest—alien. And that, too, I guess, is why you haven’t advanced greatly in the sciences. You have no real record of scientific progress. And all that howling you’ve been getting on your wireless, Honey. That was the Samians with their recently invented wireless fouling up the bands.”

She smiled timidly at him, her hands clasped together in her lap. She looked very lovely. But then… so did Delia, smiling at him from the next bed. Deuced awkward.

“They dug you out, skipper,” said Hejaz, unable to understand the odd language Tait spoke to these people, except for the occasional, understandable word, like “Forager” and “men” and “humanity”. “You were lifted on the old chap’s spade, and they’re so big and clumsy. He was bound to knock you both out, handing you up to us. Ensign Lewis brought you in.”

“Him! I suppose he’s found himself a girl already down there?”

Hejaz laughed. “Quite a few have, skipper. This planet is a pleasant place, light gravity, good air.”

Tait turned back to his friends from below. “You’ll go on living in Samia. But on the surface, where men belong. No rooflessness will affect you. You’ll form a valuable Sol-terran colony here, as was planned in the beginning. The Samians—the Demons— can only be your friends.”

Friends.

He looked at Delia and then at Honey. Well?

Well, he was a deep-spaceman, a rough and tough member of the Terran Survey Corps. He had a job to do. He would space out, on the next stage of man’s colonization and exploration of the galaxy.

Who knew what they’d find next?

Delia and Honey. Honey and Delia. Little people from the dank underworld beneath the feet of an alien race. People who’d lived all their lives as rats pilfering and stealing other people’s possessions for food, but still human beings.

Good people.

He wondered which of them—or perhaps none of them— would go with him out from this planet into the vasty deeps.

He turned with a joyful smile as a girl’s voice—a well-loved girl’s voice—stumbling over the unfamiliar language, said, “Skipper?”