A Scatter of Stardust (4 page)

“I want,” he said, when he thought that the demon was fit enough to sit up and take notice, “I want eternal youth, eternal health, eternal happiness and a charmed life.”

“Who doesn’t?” snapped the demon. “Act your age, buster. Get sensible.”

“Forgetting something?” Chris reached for a wet rag. “One wipe of this and you’ll be food for worms.”

“You think that worries me?” The demon nursed his brow. “Go ahead. Get it over and done with.”

Nonplussed Chris dropped the wet rag. Threats having failed he tried logic. “Look,” he reminded. “I’m your boss. Whatever I say you have to do. Right?”

“Wrong.”

Wearily the demon raised his head, the light seemed to hurt his eyes and he groaned, lifting a claw to shield them. “It was never like this in the old days,” he mourned. “Lantern light or a couple of torches was all they had then and no one ever tried to poison me.”

“You’ve got a hangover,” said Chris impatiently. “I’ve had lots of them in my time. It’ll pass.”

“You mean that you’ve lived through this more than once?” The demon was startled. “From choice? How much punishment can a thing like you take?”

“Keep to the point,” said Chris. “Why was I wrong when I said that whatever I asked you had to do?”

“No compulsion,” said the demon. “Oh, you can threaten to break the pentagram, sure, but the way I feel now that’s no threat.” He brooded for a moment. “Now that’s another thing which never happened before. The last thing those old-timers wanted was to break the pentagram. Of course, I’d have ripped them open before handing in my chips, the same as I would you, but where’s the profit in that?”

“None at all,” said Chris swiftly. He hadn’t thought of the natural consequences of loosing the demon. He forced himself to smile. “Let’s not talk about unpleasant things,” he urged. “Let’s keep this friendly.”

“Let’s,” agreed the demon. “How about letting me go home?”

“Later.” Chris narrowed his eyes. “You can’t leave until I give the word, can you?” He didn’t need the demon’s sullen nod to verify his suspicions. “Well, there’s your compulsion. Unless you obey me I’ll keep you here until you starve.”

“That’ll take a long time,” said the demon spitefully. “I’ve a longer life span than you and the field will collapse when you die or when you forget to maintain it.” He settled himself on the carpet “I can wait.”

He lit another cigar.

Defeated, Chris glared at his guest. This was getting more complicated than he liked and he had the uneasy feeling that things were getting beyond control. Whether the demon knew anything about the necessity of sleep, Chris didn’t know, but if the field were to collapse if he forgot to remember to maintain it then its effectiveness was limited by his ability to stay awake. Like it or not he had to appeal for guidance.

“All right,” he said. “So we’ll leave out the question of compulsion. How else do I make you obey me?”

“You can’t,” said the demon. He grew thoughtful. “Of course, there’s always incentive, you know. Something for something.”

“A trade?” Chris had expected it; the old legends were full of tales of demon callers who’d outsmarted their guests. He relaxed a little. With his training it shouldn’t be hard to get the better of any deal they might make. “Right, he said. “I’ll make a deal with you. You give me eternal youth coupled with eternal health and...”

“Take it easy!” The demon began to show interest for the first time. “Let’s be reasonable about this. I can’t give you eternal anything. No one can. I’m limited, you know.”

“You are?” Chris managed to hide his disappointment. It was logical, he supposed. If the demon had unlimited powers, he wouldn’t have gotten caught in the first place. “A pity. About your limitations, I mean. Well, what can you offer?”

“Quite a lot.” The demon hunched himself into a more comfortable position. “Women, for example, how about that?” Incredibly he became lecherous. “I can swap you a brew which will make any woman ready to fall into your arms at sight.”

“You can?” Chris controlled his amusement. “Where is it?”

“You’ll have to make it up,” said the demon. “It isn’t hard. Just take a few insects and dry them out in the sun. Then you powder them and mix the powder with...”

“I’m not interested in aphrodisiacs,” interrupted Chris. “Anyway, I know all about the stuff.” He sneered. “Is that the best you can offer?”

“You name it, I’ve got it,” said the demon. He was getting restless. “Come on, buster,” he urged. “Let’s quit playing around. What do you want and what do you offer? I want to get home!”

*

Respect is usually founded on ignorance; the less you know about a thing the more you tend to give it qualities it doesn’t possess. In the old days demonologists held what they summoned in the deepest respect and fear. They knew nothing of the natural laws governing what they did and implicitly believed in magical powers. Chris knew better and he was disappointed.

That aphrodisiac, for example. Probably some old-timer must have thought it the answer to his every prayer. A pinch of powder and youthful virility would be restored; ergo, the demon had granted the promised youth. Another pinch slipped in a cup of wine and the wench of his choice would be willing to fall into his arms. Naturally, he’d know nothing of the chemistry involved and, any later failures due to the wearing off of the dose would be attributed to heavenly intervention; a just punishment for bargaining with the powers of darkness. But, at the same time, he would have been convinced that his youth had been restored or that magic had solved the problems of his heart. Chris wondered just how much of a demon’s so-called powers were in the same category.

“Money,” he said, getting to the root of the matter. “How about getting me a nice, big, sackful of moola?”

“Moola?” The demon frowned; colloquialisms apparently didn’t translate too well.

“Sure,” said Chris. “You know, lettuce, spending stuff, coin, cash.”

“Gold,” said the demon brightly. “Now I’m with you. You want to know how to make gold?”

“I know how to make gold,” said Chris. “The trouble is that you need a roomful of equipment, enough power to light a city and, when you’ve made it, it costs more than the natural article.” He took a bill from his wallet. “Not gold, this stuff. Can you supply me a vanload or two? And make sure that the numbers are different,” he added hastily. “I don’t want to get into trouble over this.”

Somberly the demon examined the note Chris had tossed into the pentagram, holding it up to the light and studying the fine engraving. Finally he threw it back and slumped on the carpet. “Sorry, I can’t do that.”

“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?”