A Scatter of Stardust Read online

  “Why not?” Chris recovered the bill. He was getting tired and irritable, as a worker of marvels this particular demon seemed to be way down in the bottom grade. “Suppose you tell me what you can do? This is getting us nowhere.”

  “Then suppose you let me go home?”

  “Not until I’m ready.” Chris glared at his guest, his natural frustration mounting into an active dislike of the thing he had called into his presence. “You’re supposed to be a demon with powers to grant the wishes of the person who has summoned you. Hell, the old books are full of propaganda about how good you are. And what’s happened? You’ve got drunk at my expense, ruined my carpet with your cigar butts and all we’ve done is to swap a load of chitchat. As a demon you’re strictly for the birds!”

  “Now take it easy, buster!” The demon blinked red eyes, and looked annoyed. “I didn’t ask to come here, don’t forget, and now that I’m here you’ll have to put up with what you’ve got. What the hell did you expect, anyway? I’m just a normal man, not a miracle worker. The trouble with you things is that you expect too much. Not,” he added with pride, “that I’ve ever failed before. Nostradamus had nothing to kick about He wanted to know how to make gold and I told him. Same with Paracelsus and a character named Bacon. Same with twenty dozen others. They asked and I answered. How to restore youth; how to make a surefire love philter; how to make gold; how to master the elements; they asked and I answered. What more do you want?”

  “The stuff itself,” snapped Chris. “You probably fed those old-timers a load of formulas and left them to it The love philters worked, sure they did, but did anyone ever manage to make gold? Like hell they did! You may have told them how but they lacked the technology to do it.” Chris waved the bill he’d taken from his wallet “Now why can’t you deliver me a ton of this stuff?”

  “Because I’m human,” snapped the demon. “You think I usually walk around naked?” He glared down at his scaly hide. “When you whipped me into this trap I left everything behind. Hell, to copy that thing we’d need a complete printing shop, photographic equipment and a couple of skilled engravers. That’s without having to get the right paper, ink and the rest of it. I can tell you how to do it, sure, but I can’t do it for you.”

  “I know how to do it,” said Chris peevishly. “I’m not dumb.” He paused, thinking things over. It was logical, of course, and that seemed to be the trouble with this demon-summoning racket. Obviously the thing couldn’t just wave a claw and deliver the goods. Djin could, perhaps, but this character was no djin. What he could do was to give information and, assuming that his own world was in advance of the Earth, that could be important. Correction, had been important. With the strides made lately the chances were high that the demon’s world was way behind Earth’s technology. Chris felt that he was in the position of a trader trying to make a deal with a tribe of aborigines. Nothing they could tell him could be better than what he already knew.

  Which was probably why demonologists had long since faded from the scheme of things.

  *

  “You know,” said Chris wearily, “you demons are an overrated race. Squares. Peasants. Has-beens, no less.”

  The demon didn’t answer. He slumped, apparently half-asleep, in the center of the pentagram. Chris couldn’t really blame his lack of attention. For the past several hours he had been pumping his guest in a desperate attempt to salvage something from the ruins of his great scheme. What had come out was educational if not financially promising. His guess about the relative technologies had been correct. A physicist would have been very interested in the demon’s method of making gold but, basically, it was no different from atom transmutation. And Chris had the suspicion that the demon spoke more from pure theory than actual practice.

  “You don’t need me,” pleaded the demon. “How about calling it a day and letting me go home?”

  “No.” Chris was stubborn. He ran his eye down the list of items he had extracted from the creature, wondering which to plump for. None of them were extraordinary, but a couple looked promising. “What’s this Eternal Youthful Beauty for Ladies of the Court?” he asked. Cosmetics were always a good line. The demon twitched.

  “Hormone cream,” he said sullenly. “You know about hormones?”

  “Yes.” Chris ran a pencil through the item. “How about Controlling of the Elements?”

  “Carry an umbrella,” sighed the demon. “Keeps you dry when it’s wet and cool when it’s hot.”

  “And I suppose the rest of it can be classified under air conditioning,” Chris crossed off more items. “We know about Eternal Youthfulness for Gentlemen of the Court, don’t we?” He didn’t trouble to hide his sneer. The demon bristled.

  “That’s what you think,” he snapped. “It wasn’t enough just to give them virility, remember. I had to really work on that one.”

  “Oh?” Chris looked up, his pencil poised over the paper. “You really had to work?”

  The demon nodded. “Some of those old-timers were in a bad way. I had to get them on a vitamin diet and tell them how to grow some more fuzz on their faces. By the time I was through they were more than satisfied.”

  “They were?” A tingle ran down Chris’s spine. “You told them how to grow hair?” He forced himself to be casual.

  “That’s right.” The demon preened himself. “You just take a little — ” He broke off, a crafty light in his eye. “Trade?”

  “Why not?” Chris shrugged, attempting to be offhand. “It’s getting late and I guess that you want to be getting home. Tell you what I’ll do. You give me the formula to grow hair and I’ll trade you my soul.”

  “Your what?” The demon reared up on his lower limbs.

  “My soul.” Chris swallowed; he didn’t care for the way the demon was showing his talons. “It’s the usual thing, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” The demon clicked his teeth. “How about showing me this ‘soul’ of yours?”

  “I can’t. It’s the hidden part of me, the real me, and when I’m dead you can take it for your very own.” Chris forced himself to smile. “Incidentally,” he added, “it’s my most precious possession.”

  “So Faust told me,” snarled the demon. “I let him sweet-talk me into trading him twenty years of subjective time for his ‘soul.’” He paced the confines of the pentagram. “When I think of how that character rooked me! I slaved over him. I had him under controlled hypnosis for a solid week and gave him everything he wanted. And for what?”

  “You mean that he didn’t have a soul?”

  “If he did then I didn’t get it.” The demon shook his head. “From his buildup I figured that it was something special. He seemed to think so, anyway. So I gave him twenty years of subjective high living, worked myself to a shadow doing it, too, and all for nothing.” The demon brooded for a while. “Tell you what,” he suggested. “You give me the spell formula and I’ll made the trade. Is it a deal?”

  “What do you want the ritual for?” Chris was cautious. “Haven’t you one of your own?”

  “That’s beside the point,” snapped the demon. “I’m sick of being whipped into this world at the whim of every character who wants something for nothing. You give me the papers and I’ll give you the secret of how to grow hair.” He folded his arms. “And that’s my last word. Make the deal or I’ll clam up until you send me home.”

  *

  Chris pondered for a while then shrugged. It wouldn’t hurt to give the demon what he wanted. He’d had photostats made of the parchment so it was no loss. And the hair restorer could be a gold mine.

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “I’ll get the parchment while you write down the stuff I need to grow hair.” He tossed pencil and paper into the pentagram and went to find his share of the bargain. On the way back from his desk he switched on he radio, turning up the volume as far as it would go. He wasn’t sure but he had the idea that there would be noise when the demon returned to his own world. Air displacement would cause it if nothing else, an
d he didn’t want any snoopy neighbor coming in and seeing the mess. “Finished?” He held out his hand for the formula.

  “Just about.” The demon was fascinated by the radio. “How ever did you find musicians small enough to fit into that box?”

  “Made them,” said Chris flippantly.

  “Made them?” The demon blinked. “You mean that you took ordinary people and made them small enough to get inside that box?” He shook his head in baffled admiration.

  “That’s right,” said Chris. He felt a contemptuous amusement. “Don’t you have radio back home?”

  “No.” The demon looked envious. “I suppose — ?”

  “We’ve made our bargain,” said Chris quickly. He didn’t want his joke to backfire. “Have you finished writing out the formula yet?”

  “Just finished.” The demon tossed out the paper and pencil. “I’ve done the best I can with the terms I know. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting the ingredients, the old-timers never seemed to complain.” He snapped his talons. “The parchment, please.”

  “Just a minute.” Chris scanned the paper. The list of essentials was ridiculously short; he supposed that much depended on using the right proportions. In any event it would be a simple matter for any proficient chemist to refine, strain and even synthesize the formula. He glanced up from his reading. “Are you certain that this stiff will grow hair?”

  “On an egg,” assured the demon. He sounded impatient. “Look, buster,” he said. “Just for your information I don’t lie. In fact I don’t know what lying is; that’s how that Faust character managed to swindle me so easily.” He brooded about it for a moment. “Oh, well, I guess that honesty is the best policy after all.” He snapped his talons again. “Just toss in that parchment and let’s get going. I’ve a heavy date and she won’t wait.”

  “Help yourself,” said Chris, and threw the envelope containing the parchment into the pentagram. “It’s been nice meeting you,” he said politely. “Drop in again sometime.”

  “Thanks,” said the demon. He grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll be seeing you.” Then he vanished as Chris released the mental block retaining the force field. He had been right about the noise.

  *

  To a man who has conversed with a demon normal life seems rather tame. During the next three days Chris fretted at everyday routine, waiting impatiently for a friendly chemist to make up the hair-restoring formula and spending his spare time going over the photostats of the parchment he had traded to his guest.

  Having once broken the ice, as it were, Chris had no intention of calling a halt. Privately he considered that he’d had the best of the bargain. He’d swapped a moldy old paper for a modem gold mine, and what he’d done once he could do again. He had no doubt as to the value of his side of the trade. The demon seemed to have been forced to operate under an ethical code which made lying impossible. The poor goon had never had a chance.

  Chris worried a little when he discovered that the envelope containing the parchment had been one bearing his name and address. The old texts were very firm on the fact that under no account should a demon be given such information. And, come to think about it, the demon had said that he was the only member of his race to be snared by the pentagram force field. It could have had something to do with the fact that he was always summoned by name.

  The worry didn’t last long. In the light of modem science demons were pretty poor adversaries. In fact Chris was feeling quite satisfied with himself when, entering his apartment, he suddenly felt himself falling into a cloying darkness. He recovered to find himself stark naked, squatting on a stone floor in a room which seemed to have one belonged to the Inquisition.

  “Hello there!” said a hatefully familiar voice. “I told you that I’d be seeing you.”

  “No!” Chris shook his head, feeling the stunned bafflement of a man who has just had his world, literally, turn upside down. “No. it can’t be!”

  The demon didn’t answer, he didn’t have to. He merely sat lounging in his chair, the torchlight shining from his scales, letting things speak for themselves. He was, Chris noticed, dressed in an elaborate costume of ornamented silks and from time to time he puffed carefully at a shapeless roll of vegetable matter.

  “Bit of a shock, isn’t it?” He reached beside him, selected a second roll of leaves, carefully lit it and threw it toward Chris. “Have a cigar.”

  “Thanks.” Numbly Chris sucked at the roll and felt his lungs curl inside his chest.

  “You’ll get used to it,” soothed the demon. “Well, I suppose that you know why you are here?”

  Chris coughed and shook his head.

  “No? You surprise me.” The demon blew a tattered smoke ring. “It’s usual to pay a return visit. Or didn’t you know that?”

  “No,” said Chris sickly. “I didn’t know.”

  “Of course I have to be artful about it,” continued the demon chattily. “I have to get a name, you know, sort of a reference for the ritual. If I can’t get a name then I try to get hold of something personal. I thought I had you when you gave me that cigarette but the damned thing burned away. Usually I get them to sign the agreement in blood. They didn’t used to mind that.” He relaxed deeper in his chair. “All clear now?”

  “Why?”

  “Why the return visit? Well, it’s all part of the game,” explained the demon. “And it balances out the distortion of our respective universes. Something to do with the fifth law of entropy I believe.”

  “Why me?” croaked Chris. He wheezed out a lungful of smoke. “What do you want with me?”

  “Not much,” said the demon. “Just the usual trade.”

  “Is that all?” Chris felt much better. “I can only give you information, you know, we discussed that before.”

  “Nothing wrong with information,” said the demon cheerfully. “Of course, I’ve really got the edge on you things. I live much longer and so can hold the force field intact for quite a while. I’ll feed you and the rest of it, but I won’t let you go until we’ve struck a mutually satisfying bargain.” He stooped and lifted a box from the floor. It looked awfully familiar. It was, Chris realized, a fair copy of the external appearance of his portable radio.

  “I’ll tell you what I want,” continued the demon. “I’ve made this as you can see. All you have to do is to tell me how to shrink musicians so as to fit inside.”

  The Shrine

  The ship came from darkness, drifting down like a snowflake, all cones„ and planes and spires of polished metal, spotted and mottled with patches of golden light. It feathered soundlessly and gently toward the tiny world and settled on a rolling green lawn, seeming to sigh as it settled, as the big engines which defied gravity muted into silence, as the metal of the ship relaxed after the Journey.

  The sigh was echoed in the control room.

  “Journey’s end.” The captain wasn’t human and he spoke Universal with a liquid sibilance, but he was intelligent and had about him something of the mystic. The navigator respected his mysticism.

  “Journey’s end,” he echoed. He wasn’t human either but his form was as different from the captain’s as a man’s is from a frog. He spoke with a harsh bark, and his native polysyllabic name, as translated into Universal, was Aarne. He glanced through one of the ports. “They improved the place,” he commented. “Some new trees, a wider lawn, and wasn’t that a swimming pool we saw on the way down?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Money’s been spent here,” said Aarne. “A lot of money. All this refashioning of a hunk of dead rock into a miniature world.” He stamped on the floor. “Gravity even, they didn’t have all this in the old days.”

  “They didn’t have a lot of things.” The captain sighed again as he stared through the port. He was wondering at the power of faith. It was something, so he had once heard, which could move mountains. It had certainly, in this place, done more than that.

  “Well?” said the navigator. He was of a young race and the
weight of tradition rested lightly on his shoulders. “What now?”

  “We wait.”

  “Is that all?” It was the navigator’s first trip to this place; his knowledge was confined to an out-of-date solidograph. It was the captain’s eighth, and the magic of it grew with each visit.

  “We wait until the Pilgrims have done what they came to do,” he explained. “Then we take them back to the place from which they came.”

  “And find more Pilgrims?”

  “If we are fortunate enough, yes.”

  “I see.” Aarne was young and had the impatience of youth. He moved restlessly about the control room. “You like this,” he blurted out suddenly. “You like this traveling backward and forward with the Pilgrims, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? They pay, that I’ll admit, but you could earn more on any regular commercial run. What’s so special about this route?”

  “I like to see miracles,” said the captain simply.

  “Miracles?”

  “You will see.”

  *

  Deep in the bowels of the ship the Pilgrims were gathered. Unlike the captain and crew of the ship they were human; in fact it was all they had in common. Caris Weston, old, dried like a withered prune, her eyes brimming with the sense of a wasted life. Jud Murdock, crippled, his hands trembling on his cane. Joe Melish, young but bitter. Cynthia Hildergard, face pale and shoulders drooping; they and fifty more, all gathered in the bowels of this strange vessel, all human, all having that and one other thing in common.

  All human and without pride of race.

  “They sold me out,” said Murdock fretfully. “Gave all my life to building up that store and then those Rigelians came and sold me out. It takes the heart from a man a thing like that.”

  “...knew I didn’t have a chance the minute I saw that Vegan. An Earthman just isn’t wanted when they’ve got others to pick from...”