Keith Laumer - A Plague of Demons

“In other words, whenever you’ve reported anything on the demons, the listeners either didn’t believe you, couldn’t see or hear your report, or went insane or died.”

“Affirmative. In view of previously learned inhibition on reports of data in this sector, question cannot be answered.”

“Has—ah—anything started to dig? Are there any evidences of excavation work up above?”

“Negative.”

“Can the presence of this station be detected using a mass-discontinuity-type detector?”

“Negative; the station is probe-neutral.”

I let out a long breath. “What is this place? Who built it? And when?”

“Station Twelve was completed in 1926. It has been periodically added to since that time. It is one of the complex of fifty survival stations prepared by the Ultimax Group.”

“What’s the Ultimax Group?”

“An elite inner circle organization, international in scope, privately financed, comprising one hundred and fourteen individuals selected on the basis of superior intellectual endowment, advanced specialist training, emotional stability, and other factors.”

“For what purpose?”

“To monitor trends in the Basic Survival Factors, and to take such steps as may be required to maintain a favorable societal survival ratio.”

“I never heard of them. How long have they been operating?”

“Two hundred and seventy-one years.”

“My God! Who started it?”

“The original Committee included Benjamin Franklin, George Loffitt, Danilo Moncredi, and Cyril St. Claire.”

“And Felix Severance was a member?”

“Affirmative.”

“And they don’t know about—the nonobjective things up above?”

“Question indeterminate, as it requires an assumption at variance with—”

“Okay—cancel. You said there are other stations. How can I get in touch with them?”

“State the number of the station with which you desire to communicate.”

“What’s the nearest one to Jacksonville?”

“Station Nineteen, Talisman, Florida.”

“Call it.”

One of the previously blank panels opposite me glowed into life, showed me a view of a room similar in many particulars to Station Twelve, except that its basic décor was a trifle more modern—the stainless steel of the early Atomic Era.

“Anybody home?” I called.

There was no reply. I tried the other stations one after another. None answered.

“That’s that,” I said. “Tell me more about this Ultimax Group. What’s it been doing these past couple of hundred years?”

“It contributed materially to the success of the American War of Independence, the defeat of the Napoleonic Empire, the consolidation of the Italian and German nations, the emergence of Nippon, the defeat of the Central Powers in the First Engagement of the European War, and of the Axis Powers in the Second Engagement, and the establishment of the State of Israel. It supported the space effort…”

I was beginning to feel a little ragged now; the first fine glow was fading. I listened to the voice for another half-hour, while it told me all about the little-known facts of history; then I dismissed it and took another nap.

I ate, slept, and waited. After fourteen hours, the straps holding my arm down released themselves; after that, I practiced tottering up and down my prison, testing my new arm, and now and then tuning in on what went on overhead. For the most part, there was silence, broken only by the sounds of nature and the slap and thump of pacing feet. I heard a few gobbled conversations, and once an exchange between a humanoid and a demon:

“ It has means of escaping pursuit ,” the flat voice was saying as I picked it up. “ This is the same one that eluded our units at location totter-pohl .”

Angry sounds from a demon.

“ That is not my area of surveillance ,” the first voice said coldly . “My work is among the men .”

Another alien tongue-lashing.

“ All reports are negative; the instruments indicate nothing —”

An excited interruption.

“ When the star has set, then. I must call in more units …” The voice faded, going away.

“Monitor, it’s time for me to start making plans. They’re getting restless up above. I’m going to need a few things; clothes, money, weapons, transportation. Can you help me?”

“State your requirements in detail.”

“I need an inconspicuous civilian-type suit, preferably heated. I’ll also need underwear, boots, and a good hand-gun; one of those Borgia Specials Felix gave me would do nicely. About ten thousand cees in cash—some small bills, the rest in hundreds. I want a useful ID—and a good map. I don’t suppose you could get me an OE suit and a lift-belt, but a radar-negative car would be very useful—a high-speed, armored job.”

“The garments will be ready momentarily. The funds must be facsimile-reproduced from a sample. Those on hand are of last year’s issue and thus invalid. The Borgia Special is unknown; further data required. You will be given directions to the nearest Ultimax garage, where you may make a selection of helis and ground effect cars.”

I got out my wallet, now nearly flat; I picked out five and ten cee notes and a lone hundred.

“Here are your patterns; I hope you can vary the serial numbers.”

“Affirmative. Please supply data on Borgia Special.”

“That’s a 2mm needler, with a special venom. It’s effective on these nonexistent phenomena up above.”

“A Browning 2mm will be supplied; the darts will be charged with UG formula nine twenty-three toxin. Please place currency samples in slot G on the main console.”

I followed instructions. Within half an hour the delivery bin had disgorged a complete wardrobe, including a warm, sturdy, and conservatively cut suit with a special underarm pocket in which the needler nestled snugly; my wallet bulged with nicely aged bills. I had a late-model compass-map strapped to my wrist, a card identifying me as a Treasury man, and a special key tucked in an inner pocket that would open the door to a concealed Ultimax motor depot near Independence, less than thirty miles away. I was equipped to leave now—as soon as I was strong enough.

More hours passed. At regular intervals, the Station Monitor gave instructions for treatment, keeping tabs on my condition by means of an array of remote-sensing instruments buried in the walls. My strength was returning slowly; I had lost a lot of weight, but the diet of nourishing concentrates the station supplied was replacing some of that, too.

The arm was a marvel of bioprosthetics. The sight of the stark, functional chromalloy radius and ulna still gave me a strange, unpleasant sensation every time I saw it, but I was learning to use it; as the nerve-connections healed, I was even developing tactile sensitivity in the fingertips.

When the chronometer on the wall showed that I had been in the underground station for forty-nine hours, I made another routine inquiry about conditions up above.

“How about it, Monitor?” I called. “Any signs of excavation work going on up there?”

There was a long pause—as there was every time I asked questions around the edges of the Forbidden Topic.

“Negative,” the voice said at last.

“They’ve had time enough now to discover I’m not hiding under the rug in some nearby motel. I wonder what they’re waiting for?”

There was no answer. But then I hadn’t really asked a question.

“Make another try to raise one of the other stations,” I ordered. I watched the screen as one equipment-crowded room after another flashed into view. None answered my call.

“What about those other Station Monitors?” I asked. “Can I talk to them?”