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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32010-h.zip b/32010-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..82047c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/32010-h.zip diff --git a/32010-h/32010-h.htm b/32010-h/32010-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81f3a6f --- /dev/null +++ b/32010-h/32010-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1622 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Feast of Demons, by William Morrison + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.img1 {border:solid 1px; } + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.p1 { margin-left: 70%; } + +.center {text-align: center;} + + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Feast of Demons, by William Morrison + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Feast of Demons + +Author: William Morrison + +Illustrator: Dillon + +Release Date: April 16, 2010 [EBook #32010] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEAST OF DEMONS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction March 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="535" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h1>A FEAST OF DEMONS</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2>By WILLIAM MORRISON</h2> +<p> </p> +<h3>Illustrated by DILLON</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot">If you want my opinion, old Maxwell should have kept his +big mouth shut ... and then El Greco could not have put Earth in a +frame!</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>I</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t1.jpg" alt="T" width="45" height="50" /></div> +<p>hat year we were all Romans, and I have to tell you that I look awful +in a toga and short sword, but not nearly as awful as the Greek.</p> + +<p>You go to one of the big schools and naturally you turn out for the +Class Reunion. Why not? There's money there, and good fellowship, and +money, and the chance of a business contact that will do you some +good. And money.</p> + +<p>Well, I wasn't that fortunate—and you can say that again because it's +the story of my life: I wasn't that fortunate.</p> + +<p>I didn't go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. I didn't even go to +Columbia, U.C.L.A. or the University of Chicago. What I went to was +Old Ugly. Don't lie to me—you never heard of Old Ugly, not even if I +tell you it's Oglethorpe A. & M. There were fifty-eight of us in my +graduating class—that's 1940—and exactly thirty turned up for the +tenth reunion.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="700" height="394" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Wouldn't that turn your stomach? Only thirty Old Grads with enough +loyalty and school feeling to show up for that tenth reunion and +parade around in Roman togas and drink themselves silly and renew old +school ties. And, out of that thirty, the ones that we all really +wanted to see for sentimental reasons—I refer to Feinbarger of +Feinbarger Shipping, Schroop of the S.S.K. Studios in Hollywood, Dixon +of the National City Bank and so on—they didn't show up at all. It +was terribly disappointing to all of us, especially to me.</p> + +<p>In fact, at the feast that evening, I found myself sitting next to El +Greco. There simply wasn't anyone else there. You understand that I +don't refer to that Spanish painter—I believe he's dead, as a matter +of fact. I mean Theobald Greco, the one we called the Greek.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="19" height="40" /></div> +<p> introduced myself and he looked at me blearily through thick +glasses. "Hampstead? Hampstead?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Virgil</i> Hampstead," I reminded him. "You remember me. Old Virgie."</p> + +<p>He said, "Sure. Any more of that stuff left in the bottle, Old +Virgie?"</p> + +<p>I poured for him. It was my impression, later borne out by evidence, +that he was not accustomed to drinking.</p> + +<p>I said, "It's sure great to see all the fellows again, isn't it? Say, +look at Pudge Detweiler there! Ever see anything so comical as the +lampshade he's wearing for a hat?"</p> + +<p>"Just pass me the bottle, will you?" Greco requested. "Old Virgie, I +mean."</p> + +<p>"Still in research and that sort of thing?" I asked. "You always were +a brain, Greek. I can't tell you how much I've envied you creative +fellows. I'm in sales myself. Got a little territory right here that's +a mint, Greek. A mint. If I only knew where I could lay my hands on a +little capital to expand it the way—But I won't bore you with shop +talk. What's your line these days?"</p> + +<p>"I'm in transmutation," he said clearly, and passed out face down on +the table.</p> + +<p>Now nobody ever called me a dope—other things, yes, but not a dope.</p> + +<p>I knew what transmutation meant. Lead into gold, tin into platinum, +all that line of goodies. And accordingly the next morning, after a +certain amount of Bromo and black coffee, I asked around the campus +and found out that Greco had a place of his own not far from the +campus. That explained why he'd turned up for the reunion. I'd been +wondering.</p> + +<p>I borrowed cab fare from Old Pudge Detweiler and headed for the +address I'd been given.</p> + +<p>It wasn't a home. It was a beat-up factory and it had a sign over the +door:</p> + +<p class="center">T. GRECO</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Plant Foods & Organic Supplies</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_s.jpg" alt="S" width="26" height="40" /></div> +<p>ince it was Sunday, nobody seemed to be there, but I pushed open the +door. It wasn't locked. I heard something from the basement, so I +walked down a flight of steps and looked out into a rather smelly +laboratory.</p> + +<p>There was the Greek. Tall, thin, wide-eyed and staggering, he +appeared to be chasing butterflies.</p> + +<p>I cleared my throat, but he didn't hear me. He was racing around the +laboratory, gasping and muttering to himself, sweeping at empty air +with what looked to me like an electric toaster on a stick. I looked +again and, no, it wasn't an electric toaster, but exactly what it was +defied me. It appeared to have a recording scale on the side of it, +with a needle that flickered wildly.</p> + +<p>I couldn't see what he was chasing.</p> + +<p>The fact was that, as far as I could see, he wasn't chasing anything +at all.</p> + +<p>You have to get the picture: Here was Greco, racing around with one +eye on the scale and one eye on thin air; he kept bumping into things, +and every now and then he'd stop, and stare around at the gadgets on +the lab benches, and maybe he'd throw a switch or turn a dial, and +then he'd be off again.</p> + +<p>He kept it up for ten minutes and, to tell you the truth, I began to +wish that I'd made some better use of Pudge Detweiler's cab fare. The +Greek looked as though he'd flipped, nothing less.</p> + +<p>But there I was. So I waited.</p> + +<p>And by and by he seemed to get whatever it was he was looking for and +he stopped, breathing heavily.</p> + +<p>I said, "Hi there, Greek."</p> + +<p>He looked up sharply. "Oh," he said, "Old Virgie."</p> + +<p>He slumped back against a table, trying to catch his breath.</p> + +<p>"The little devils," he panted. "They must have thought they'd got +away that time. But I fixed them!"</p> + +<p>"Sure you did," I said. "You bet you did. Mind if I come in?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged. Ignoring me, he put down the toaster on a stick, flipped +some switches and stood up. A whining sound dwindled and disappeared; +some flickering lights went out. Others remained on, but he seemed to +feel that, whatever it was he was doing, it didn't require his +attention now.</p> + +<p>In his own good time, he came over and we shook hands. I said +appreciatively, "Nice-looking laboratory you have here, Greek. I don't +know what the stuff is for, but it looks expen—it looks very +efficient."</p> + +<p>He grunted. "It is. Both. Expensive and efficient."</p> + +<p>I laughed. "Say," I said, "you were pretty loaded last night. Know +what you told me you were doing here?"</p> + +<p>He looked up quickly. "What?"</p> + +<p>"You said you were in transmutation." I laughed harder than ever.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="41" height="40" /></div> +<p>e stared at me thoughtfully, and for a second I thought—well, I +don't know what I thought, but I was worried. He had a lot of +funny-looking things there, and his hand was stretching out toward one +of them.</p> + +<p>But then he said, "Old Virgie."</p> + +<p>"That's me," I said eagerly.</p> + +<p>"I owe you an apology," he went on.</p> + +<p>"You do?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "I'd forgotten," he confessed, ashamed. "I didn't remember +until just this minute that you were the one I talked to in my senior +year. My only confidant. And you've kept my secret all this time."</p> + +<p>I coughed. "It was nothing," I said largely. "Don't give it a +thought."</p> + +<p>He nodded in appreciation. "That's just like you," he reminisced. "Ten +years, eh? And you haven't breathed a word, have you?"</p> + +<p>"Not a word," I assured him. And it was no more than the truth. I +hadn't said a word to anybody. I hadn't even said a word to myself. +The fact of the matter was, I had completely forgotten what he was +talking about. Kept his secret? I didn't even <i>remember</i> his secret. +And it was driving me nuts!</p> + +<p>"I was sure of you," he said, suddenly thawing. "I knew I could trust +you. I must have—otherwise I certainly wouldn't have told you, would +I?"</p> + +<p>I smiled modestly. But inside I was fiercely cudgeling my brain.</p> + +<p>He said suddenly, "All right, Virgie. You're entitled to something for +having kept faith. I tell you what I'll do—I'll let you in on what +I'm doing here."</p> + +<p>All at once, the little muscles at the back of my neck began to tense +up.</p> + +<p>He would do <i>what</i>? "Let me in" on something? It was an unpleasantly +familiar phrase. I had used it myself all too often.</p> + +<p>"To begin with," said the Greek, focusing attentively on me, "you +wonder, perhaps, what I was doing when you came in."</p> + +<p>"I do," I said.</p> + +<p>He hesitated. "Certain—particles, which are of importance to my +research, have a tendency to go free. I can keep them under a measure +of control only by means of electrostatic forces, generated in this." +He waved the thing that looked like a toaster on a stick. "And as for +what they do—well, watch."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_e.jpg" alt="E" width="34" height="40" /></div> +<p>l Greco began to putter with gleamy, glassy gadgets on one of the +tables and I watched him with, I admit, a certain amount of suspicion.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing, Greek?" I asked pretty bluntly.</p> + +<p>He looked up. Surprisingly, I saw that the suspicion was mutual; he +frowned and hesitated. Then he shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "For a minute I—but I can trust you, can't I? The man +who kept my secret for ten long years."</p> + +<p>"Of course," I said.</p> + +<p>"All right." He poured water out of a beaker into a U-shaped tube, +open at both ends. "Watch," he said. "Remember any of your college +physics?"</p> + +<p>"The way things go, I haven't had much time to keep up with—"</p> + +<p>"All the better, all the better," he said. "Then you won't be able to +steal anything."</p> + +<p>I caught my breath. "Now <i>listen</i>—"</p> + +<p>"No offense, Virgie," he said earnestly. "But this is a billion +dollars and—No matter. When it comes right down to cases, you could +know as much as all those fool professors of ours put together and it +still wouldn't help you steal a thing."</p> + +<p>He bobbed his head, smiled absently and went back to his gleamy +gadgets. I tell you, I <i>steamed</i>. That settled it, as far as I was +concerned. There was simply no excuse for such unjustified insults to +my character. I certainly had no intention of attempting to take any +unfair advantage, but if he was going to act that way....</p> + +<p>He was asking for it. Actually and literally asking for it.</p> + +<p>He rapped sharply on the U-tube with a glass stirring rod, seeking my +attention.</p> + +<p>"I'm watching," I told him, very amiable now that he'd made up my mind +for me.</p> + +<p>"Good. Now," he said, "you know what I do here in the plant?"</p> + +<p>"Why—you make fertilizer. It says so on the sign."</p> + +<p>"Ha! No," he said. "That is a blind. What I do is, I separate optical +isomers."</p> + +<p>"That's very nice," I said warmly. "I'm glad to hear it, Greek."</p> + +<p>"Shut up," he retorted unexpectedly. "You don't have the foggiest +notion of what an optical isomer is and you know it. But try and +think. This isn't physics; it's organic chemistry. There are compounds +that exist in two forms—apparently identical in all respects, except +that one is the mirror image of the other. Like right-hand and +left-hand gloves; one is the other, turned backwards. You understand +so far?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," I said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="41" height="40" /></div> +<p>e looked at me thoughtfully, then shrugged. "No matter. They're +called d- and l-isomers—d for dextro, l for levo; right and left, you +see. And although they're identical except for being mirror-reversed, +it so happens that sometimes one isomer is worth much more than the +other."</p> + +<p>"I see that," I said.</p> + +<p>"I thought you would. Well, they can be separated—but it's expensive. +Not my way, though. My way is quick and simple. I use demons."</p> + +<p>"Oh, now, Greek. <i>Really.</i>"</p> + +<p>He said in a weary tone, "Don't talk, Virgie. Just listen. It won't +tire you so much. But bear in mind that this is simply the most +trifling application of my discovery. I could use it for separating +U-235 from U-238 just as easily. In fact, I already—" He stopped in +mid-sentence, cocked his head, looked at me and backtracked. "Never +mind that. But you know what a Maxwell demon is?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Good for you, Virgie. Good for you!" he applauded. "I knew I'd get +the truth out of you if I waited long enough." <i>Another</i> ambiguous +remark, I thought to myself. "But you surely know the second law of +thermodynamics."</p> + +<p>"Surely."</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd say that," he said gravely. "So then you know that if +you put an ice cube in a glass of warm water, for instance, the ice +melts, the water cools, and you get a glass with no ice but with all +the water lowered in temperature. Right? And it's a one-way process. +That is, you can't start with a glass of cool water and, hocus-pocus, +get it to separate into warm water and ice cube, right?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally," I said, "for heaven's sake. I mean that's silly."</p> + +<p>"<i>Very</i> silly," he agreed. "You know it yourself, eh? So watch."</p> + +<p>He didn't say hocus-pocus. But he did adjust something on one of his +gadgets.</p> + +<p>There was a faint whine and a gurgling, spluttering sound, like fat +sparks climbing between spreading electrodes in a Frankenstein movie.</p> + +<p>The water began to steam faintly.</p> + +<p>But only at one end! That end was steam; the other was—was—</p> + +<p>It was ice. A thin skin formed rapidly, grew thicker; the other open +end of the U-tube began to bubble violently. Ice at one end, steam at +the other.</p> + +<p>Silly?</p> + +<p>But I was seeing it!</p> + +<p>I must say, however, that at the time I didn't really know that that +was all I saw.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> +<p>he reason for this is that Pudge Detweiler came groaning down the +steps to the laboratory just then.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Greek," he wheezed. "Ah, Virgie. I wanted to talk to you before I +left." He came into the room and, panting, eased himself into a chair, +a tired hippopotamus with a hangover.</p> + +<p>"What did you want to talk to me about?" Greco demanded.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="400" height="547" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"You?" Pudge's glance wandered around the room; it was a look of +amused distaste, the look of a grown man observing the smudgy mud play +of children. "Oh, not you, Greek. I wanted to talk to Virgie. That +sales territory you mentioned, Virgie. I've been thinking. I don't +know if you're aware of it, but when my father passed away last +winter, he left me—well, with certain responsibilities. And it +occurred to me that you might be willing to let me invest some of +the—"</p> + +<p>I didn't even let him finish. I had him out of there so fast, we +didn't even have a chance to say good-by to Greco. And all that stuff +about demons and hot-and-cold water and so on, it all went out of my +head as though it had never been. Old Pudge Detweiler! How was <i>I</i> to +know that his father had left him thirty thousand dollars in one +attractive lump of cash!</p> + + +<h2>II</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w.jpg" alt="W" width="51" height="40" /></div> +<p>ell, there were business reverses. Due to the reverses, I was forced +to miss the next few reunions. But I had a lot of time to think and +study, in between times at the farm and the shop where we stamped out +license plates for the state.</p> + +<p>When I got out, I began looking for El Greco.</p> + +<p>I spent six months at it, and I didn't have any luck at all. El Greco +had moved his laboratory and left no forwarding address.</p> + +<p>But I wanted to find him. I wanted it so badly, I could taste it, +because I had begun to have some idea of what he was talking about, +and so I kept on looking.</p> + +<p>I never did find him, though. He found me.</p> + +<p>He came walking in on me in a shabby little hotel room, and I hardly +recognized him, he looked so prosperous and healthy.</p> + +<p>"You're looking just great, Greek," I said enthusiastically, seeing it +was true. The years hadn't added a pound or a wrinkle—just the +reverse, in fact.</p> + +<p>"You're not looking so bad yourself," he said, and gazed at me +sharply. "Especially for a man not long out of prison."</p> + +<p>"Oh." I cleared my throat. "You know about that."</p> + +<p>"I heard that Pudge Detweiler prosecuted."</p> + +<p>"I see." I got up and began uncluttering a chair. "Well," I said, +"it's certainly good to—How did you find me?"</p> + +<p>"Detectives. Money buys a lot of help. I've got a lot of money."</p> + +<p>"Oh." I cleared my throat again.</p> + +<p>Greco looked at me, nodding thoughtfully to himself. There was one +good thing; maybe he knew about my trouble with Pudge, but he also had +gone out of his way to find me. So <i>he</i> wanted something out of <i>me</i>.</p> + +<p>He said suddenly, "Virgie, you were a damned fool."</p> + +<p>"I was," I admitted honestly. "Worse than you know. But I am no +longer. Greek, old boy, all this stuff you told me about those demons +got me interested. I had plenty of time for reading in prison. You +won't find me as ignorant as I was the last time we talked."</p> + +<p>He laughed sourly. "That's a hot one. Four years of college leave you +as ignorant as the day you went in, but a couple years of jail make +you an educated man."</p> + +<p>"Also a reformed one."</p> + +<p>He said mildly, "Not too reformed, I hope."</p> + +<p>"Crime doesn't pay—except when it's within the law. That's the chief +thing I learned."</p> + +<p>"Even then it doesn't pay," he said moodily. "Except in money, of +course. But what's the use of money?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> +<p>here wasn't anything to say to <i>that</i>. I said, probing delicately, "I +figured you were loaded. If you can use your demons to separate U-235 +from U-238, you can use them for separating gold from sea water. You +can use them for damn near anything."</p> + +<p>"Damn near," he concurred. "Virgie, you may be of some help to me. +Obviously you've been reading up on Maxwell."</p> + +<p>"Obviously."</p> + +<p>It was the simple truth. I had got a lot of use out of the prison +library—even to the point of learning all there was to learn about +Clerk Maxwell, one of the greatest of physicists, and his little +demons. I had rehearsed it thoroughly for El Greco.</p> + +<p>"Suppose," I said, "that you had a little compartment inside a pipe of +flowing gas or liquid. That's what Maxwell said. Suppose the +compartment had a little door that allowed molecules to enter or +leave. You station a demon—that's what Maxie called them himself—at +the door. The demon sees a hot molecule coming, he opens the door. He +sees a cold one, he closes it. By and by, just like that, all the hot +molecules are on one side of the door, all the cold ones—the slow +ones, that is—on the other. Steam on one side, ice on the other, +that's what it comes down to."</p> + +<p>"That was what you saw with your own eyes," Theobald Greco reminded +me.</p> + +<p>"I admit it," I said. "And I admit I didn't understand. But I do now."</p> + +<p>I understood plenty. Separate isotopes—separate elements, for that +matter. Let your demon open the door to platinum, close it to lead. He +could make you rich in no time.</p> + +<p>He had, in fact, done just that for Greco.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_g.jpg" alt="G" width="36" height="40" /></div> +<p>reco said, "Here. First installment." He pulled something out of his +pocket and handed it to me. It was metallic—about the size of a +penny slot-machine bar of chocolate, if you remember back that far. It +gleamed and it glittered. And it was ruddy yellow in color.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Gold," he said. "Keep it, Virgie. It came out of sea water, like you +said. Call it the down payment on your salary."</p> + +<p>I hefted it. I bit it. I said, "By the way, speaking of salary...."</p> + +<p>"Whatever you like," he said wearily. "A million dollars a year? Why +not?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" I echoed, a little dazed.</p> + +<p>And then I just sat there listening, while he talked. What else was +there to do? I won't even say that I was listening, at least not with +the very fullest of attention, because that thought of a million +dollars a year kept coming between me and his words. But I got the +picture. The possibilities were endless. And how well I knew it!</p> + +<p>Gold from the sea, sure. But energy—free energy—it was there for the +taking. From the molecules of the air, for instance. Refrigerators +could be cooled, boilers could get up steam, homes could be heated, +forges could be fired—and all without fuel. Planes could fly through +the air without a drop of gasoline in their tanks. Anything.</p> + +<p>A million dollars a year....</p> + +<p>And it was only the beginning.</p> + +<p>I came to. "What?"</p> + +<p>He was looking at me. He repeated patiently, "The police are looking +for me."</p> + +<p>I stared. "<i>You?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Did you hear about Grand Rapids?"</p> + +<p>I thought. "Oh—Wait. A fire. A big one. And that was you?"</p> + +<p>"Not me. My demons. Maxwell demons—or Greco demons, they should be +called. He talked about them; I use them. When they're not using me. +This time, they burned down half the city."</p> + +<p>"I remember now," I said. The papers had been full of it.</p> + +<p>"They got loose," he said grimly. "But that's not the worst. You'll +have to earn your million a year, Virgie."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, they got loose?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged. "Controls aren't perfect. Sometimes the demons escape. I +can't help it."</p> + +<p>"How do you control them in the first place?"</p> + +<p>He sighed. "It isn't really what you would call controls," he said. +"It's just the best I can do to keep them from spreading."</p> + +<p>"But—you said sometimes you separate metals, sometimes you get +energy. How do the demons know which you want them to do, if you say +you can't control them?"</p> + +<p>"How do you make an apple tree understand whether you want it to grow +Baldwins or Macintoshes?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="19" height="40" /></div> +<p> gawked at him. "Why—but you don't, Greek! I mean it's either one or +the other!"</p> + +<p>"Just so with demons! You're not so stupid after all, are you? It's +like improving the breed of dogs. You take a common ancestral mutt, +and generations later you can develop an Airedale, a dachshund or a +Spitz. How? By selection. My demon entities grow, they split, the new +entities adapt themselves to new conditions. There's a process of +evolution. I help it along, that's all."</p> + +<p>He took the little slab of gold from me, brooding.</p> + +<p>Abruptly he hurled it at the wall. "Gold!" he cried wildly. "But who +wants it? I need <i>help</i>, Virgie! If gold will buy it from you, I'll +pay! But I'm desperate. You'd be desperate too, with nothing ahead but +a sordid, demeaning death from young age and a—"</p> + +<p>I interrupted him. "What's that?"</p> + +<p>It was a nearby raucous hooting, loud and mournful.</p> + +<p>Greco stopped in mid-sentence, listening like a hunted creature. "My +room," he whispered. "All my equipment—on the floor above—"</p> + +<p>I stepped back, a little worried. He was a strange man, skinny and +tall and wild-eyed. I was glad he was so thin; if he'd been built +solidly in proportion to his height, just then he would have worried +me, with those staring, frightened eyes and that crazy way of talking. +But I didn't have time to worry, in any case. Footsteps were +thundering in the halls. Distant voices shouted to each other.</p> + +<p>The hoot came again.</p> + +<p>"The fire whistle!" Greco bayed. "The hotel's on fire!"</p> + +<p>He leaped out of my room into the corridor.</p> + +<p>I followed. There was a smell of burning—not autumn leaves or paper; +it was a chemical-burning smell, a leather-burning smell, a +henyard-on-fire smell. It reeked of an assortment of things, gunpowder +and charred feathers, the choking soot of burning oil, the crisp tang +of a wood fire. It was, I thought for a second, perhaps the typical +smell of a hotel on fire, but in that I was wrong.</p> + +<p>"Demons!" yelled Greco, and a bellhop, hurrying by, paused to look at +us queerly. Greco sped for the stairs and up them.</p> + +<p>I followed.</p> + +<p>It was Greco's room that was ablaze—he made that clear, trying to get +into it. But he couldn't. Black smoke billowed out of it, and orange +flame. The night manager's water bucket was going to make no headway +against <i>that</i>.</p> + +<p>I retreated. But Greco plunged ahead, his face white and scary.</p> + +<p>I stopped at the head of the stairs. The flames drove Greco off, but +he tried again. They drove him off again, and this time for good.</p> + +<p>He stumbled toward me. "Out! It's hopeless!" He turned, stared blindly +at the hotel employees with their chain of buckets. "You! What do you +think you're doing? That's—" He stopped, wetting his lips. "That's a +gasoline fire," he lied, "and there's dynamite in my luggage. Clear +the hotel, you hear me?"</p> + +<p>It was, as I say, a lie. But it got the hotel cleared out.</p> + +<p>And then—</p> + +<p>It might as well have been gasoline and dynamite. There was a purplish +flash and a muttering boom, and the whole roof of the four-story +building lifted off.</p> + +<p>I caught his arm.</p> + +<p>"Let's get out of here," I said.</p> + +<p>He looked at me blindly. I'd swear he didn't know me. His eyes were +tortured.</p> + +<p>"Too late!" he croaked. "Too late! They're free again!"</p> + + +<h2>III</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_s.jpg" alt="S" width="26" height="40" /></div> +<p>o I went to work for Theobald Greco—in his laboratory in Southern +California, where we replaced some of the things that had been +destroyed.</p> + +<p>And one morning I woke up and found my hair was white.</p> + +<p>I cried, "Greek!"</p> + +<p>Minnie came running in. I don't believe I told you about Minnie. She +was Greco's idea of the perfect laboratory assistant—stupid, old, +worthless to the world and without visible kin. She came in and stared +and set up a cackling that would wake the dead.</p> + +<p>"Mister Hampstead!" she chortled. "My, but ain't you a sight!"</p> + +<p>"Where's Greco?" I demanded, and pushed her out of my way.</p> + +<p>In pajamas and bathrobe, I stalked down the stairs and into the room +that had once been a kitchen and now was Greco's laboratory.</p> + +<p>"Look!" I yelled. "What about <i>this</i>?"</p> + +<p>He turned to look at me.</p> + +<p>After a long moment, he shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid of that," he mumbled. "You were a towhead as a kid, +weren't you? And now you're a towhead again."</p> + +<p>"But my hair, Greek! It's turned <i>white</i>."</p> + +<p>"Not white," he corrected despondently. "Yellow. It's reverted to +youth—overnight, the way it happens sometimes. I warned you, Virgie. +I told you there were dangers. Now you know. Because—"</p> + +<p>He hesitated, looked at me, then looked away.</p> + +<p>"Because," he said, "you're getting younger, just like me. If we don't +get this thing straightened out, you're going to die of young age +yourself."</p> + +<p>I stared at him. "You said that before, about yourself. I thought +you'd just tongue-twisted. But you really mean—"</p> + +<p>"Sit down," he ordered. "Virgie, I told you that you were looking +younger. It wasn't just looks. It's the demons—and not just you and +me, but a lot of people. First Grand Rapids. Then when the hotel +burned. Plenty have been exposed—you more than most, I guess, ever +since the day you walked into my lab and I was trying to recapture +some that had got away. Well, I don't guess I recaptured them all."</p> + +<p>"You mean <i>I</i>—"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Some of the demons make people younger. And you've got a +colony of them in you."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="19" height="40" /></div> +<p> swallowed and sat down. "You mean I'm going to get younger and +younger, until finally I become a baby? And then—what then, Greek?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged. "How do I know? Ask me in another ten years. <i>Look at me, +Virgie!</i>" he cried, suddenly loud. "How old do I look to you? +Eighteen? Twenty?"</p> + +<p>It was the plain truth. He looked no more than that. Seeing him day by +day, I wasn't conscious of change; remembering him from when we had +gone to school, I thought of him as younger anyway. But he was forty, +at the very least, and he didn't look old enough to vote.</p> + +<p>He said, "I've had demons inside of me for six years. It seems they're +a bit choosy about where they'll live. They don't inhabit the whole +body, just parts of it—heart, lungs, liver. Maybe bones. Maybe some +of the glands—perhaps that' s why I feel so chipper physically. But +not my brain, or not yet. Fortunately."</p> + +<p>"Fortunately? But that's wrong, Greek! If your brain grew younger +too—"</p> + +<p>"Fool! If I had a young brain, I'd forget everything I learned, like +unrolling a tape backwards! That's the danger, Virgie, the immediate +danger that's pressing me—that's why I needed help! Because if I ever +forget, that's the end. Not just for me—for everybody; because +there's no one else in the world who knows how to control these things +at all. Except me—and you, if I can train you."</p> + +<p>"They're loose?" I felt my hair wonderingly. Still, it was not exactly +a surprise. "How many?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged. "I have no idea. When they let the first batch of rabbits +loose in Australia, did they have any idea how many there would be a +couple of dozen generations later?"</p> + +<p>I whistled. Minnie popped her head in the door and giggled. I waved +her away.</p> + +<p>"She could use some of your demons," I remarked. "Sometimes I think +she has awfully young ideas, for a woman who's sixty if she's a day."</p> + +<p>Greco laughed crazily. "Minnie? She's been working for me for a year. +And she was eighty-five when I hired her!"</p> + +<p>"I can't believe you!"</p> + +<p>"Then you'll have to start practicing right now," he said.</p> + +<p>It was tough, and no fooling; but I became convinced. It wasn't the +million dollars a year any more.</p> + +<p>It was the thought of ending my days as a drooling, mewling infant—or +worse! To avert that, I was willing to work my brain to a shred.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_f.jpg" alt="F" width="32" height="40" /></div> +<p>irst it was a matter of learning—learning about the "strange +particles." Ever hear of them? That's not my term—that's what the +physicists call them. Positrons. The neutrino. Pions and muons, plus +and minus; the lambda and the antilambda. K particles, positive and +negative, and anti-protons and anti-neutrons and sigmas, positive, +negative and neutral, and—</p> + +<p>Well, that's enough; but physics had come a long way since the classes +I cut at Old Ugly, and there was a lot to catch up on.</p> + +<p>The thing was, some of the "strange particles" were stranger than even +most physicists knew. Some—in combination—were in fact Greco's +demons.</p> + +<p>We bought animals—mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, even dogs. We infected +the young with some of our own demons—that was simple enough, +frighteningly simple; all we had to do was handle them a bit. And we +watched what happened.</p> + +<p>They died—of young age.</p> + +<p>Some vital organ or another regressed to embryonic condition, and they +died—as Greco and I would die, if we didn't find the answer. As the +whole world might die. Was it better than reverting past the embryo to +the simple lifeless zygote? I couldn't decide. It was dying, all the +same. When an embryonic heart or liver is called on to do a job for a +mature organism, there is only one way out. Death.</p> + +<p>And after death—the demons went on; the dog we fed on the remains of +the guinea pigs followed them to extinction in a matter of weeks.</p> + +<p>Minnie was an interesting case.</p> + +<p>She was going about her work with more energy every day, and I'll be +blasted if I didn't catch her casting a lingering Marilyn Monroe sort +of look at me when Greco's back was turned.</p> + +<p>"Shall we fire her?" I asked El Greco when I told him about it.</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"She's disrupting the work!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/image_003.jpg" width="400" height="544" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"The work isn't worth a damn anyhow," he said moodily. "We're not +getting anywhere, Virgie. If it was only a matter of smooth, +predictable rates—But look at her. She's picking up speed! She's +dropped five years in the past couple weeks."</p> + +<p>"She can stand to drop a lot more," I said, annoyed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_h.jpg" alt="H" width="41" height="40" /></div> +<p>e shrugged. "It depends on where. Her nose? It's shortened to about a +fifteen-year-old level now. Facial hair? That's mostly gone. Skin +texture? Well, I suppose there's no such thing as a too-immature skin, +I mean short of the embryonic capsule, but—Wait a minute."</p> + +<p>He was staring at the doorway.</p> + +<p>Minnie was standing there, simpering.</p> + +<p>"Come here!" he ordered in a voice like thunder. "Come here, you! +Virgie, look at her nose!"</p> + +<p>I looked. "Ugh," I said, but more or less under my breath.</p> + +<p>"No, no!" cried Greco. "Virgie, don't you see her <i>nose</i>?" Foolish; of +course I did. It was long, beaked—</p> + +<p>Then I saw.</p> + +<p>"It's growing longer," I whispered.</p> + +<p>"Right, my boy! Right! One curve at least has reversed itself. Do you +see, Virgie?"</p> + +<p>I nodded. "She's—she's beginning to age again."</p> + +<p>"Better than that!" he crowed. "It's faster than normal aging, Virgie! +<i>There are aging demons loose too!</i>"</p> + +<p>A breath of hope!</p> + +<p>But hope died. Sure, he was right—as far as it went.</p> + +<p>There <i>were</i> aging demons. We isolated them in some of our +experimental animals. First we had to lure Minnie into standing still +while Greco, swearing horribly, took a tissue sample; she didn't like +that, but a hundred-dollar bonus converted her. Solid CO<sub>2</sub> froze the +skin; <i>snip</i>, and a tiny flake of flesh came out of her nose at the +point of Greco's scalpel; he put the sample of flesh through a few +tricks and, at the end of the day, we tried it on some of our mice.</p> + +<p>They died.</p> + +<p>Well, it was gratifying, in a way—they died of old age. But die they +did. It took three days to show an effect, but when it came, it was +dramatic. These were young adult mice, in the full flush of their +mousehood, but when these new demons got to work on them, they +suddenly developed a frowsy, decrepit appearance that made them look +like Bowery bums over whom Cinderella's good fairy had waved her wand +in reverse. And two days later they were dead.</p> + +<p>"I think we've got something," said Greco thoughtfully; but I didn't +think so, and I was right. Dead was dead. We could kill the animals +by making them too young. We could kill the animals by making them too +old. But keep them alive, once the demons were in them, we could not.</p> + +<p>Greco evolved a plan: Mix the two breeds of demons! Take an animal +with the young-age demons already in it, then add a batch that worked +in the other direction!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_f.jpg" alt="F" width="32" height="40" /></div> +<p>or a while, it seemed to work—but only for a while. After a couple +of weeks, one breed or the other would gain the upper hand. And the +animals died.</p> + +<p>It was fast in mice, slow in humans. Minnie stayed alive. But the nose +grew longer and facial hair reappeared; simultaneously her complexion +cleared, her posture straightened.</p> + +<p>And then, for the first time, we began to read the papers.</p> + +<p class="center"> +STRANGE PLAGUE<br /> +STRIKES ELGIN +</p> + +<p>bawled the Chicago <i>Tribune</i>, and went on to tell how the suburbs +around Elgin, Illinois, were heavily infested with a curious new +malady, the symptoms of which were—youth.</p> + +<p class="center"> +OAKLAND "BABY-SKIN"<br /> +TOLL PASSES 10,000 +</p> + +<p>blared the San Francisco <i>Examiner</i>. The New York <i>News</i> found +thousands of cases in Brooklyn. A whole hospital in Dallas was +evacuated to make room for victims of the new plague.</p> + +<p>And more.</p> + +<p>We looked at each other.</p> + +<p>"They're out in force," said Theobald Greco soberly. "And we don't +have the cure."</p> + + +<h2>IV</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div> +<p>he world was topsy-turvy, and in the middle of it Minnie disappeared, +talking hysterically about reporting us to the authorities. I don't +mind admitting that I was worried.</p> + +<p>And the experiments were not progressing. The trouble seemed to be +that the two varieties of demons—the aging and the youthing—were not +compatible; if one took up residence in a given section of an +organism, the other moved out. The more numerous destroyed the weaker; +there was no balance. We tested it again and again in the mice and +there was no doubt of it.</p> + +<p>So far, only the youthing demons were free. But when Minnie left us, +it was only a matter of time. Our carriers—from Grand Rapids and from +the hotel—had spread to California and the East Coast, to the North +and to the South, throughout the country, perhaps by now through the +world. It would be slower with the aging demons—there was only one +of Minnie—but it would be equally sure.</p> + +<p>Greco began drinking heavily.</p> + +<p>"It's the end," he brooded. "We're licked."</p> + +<p>"No, Greek! We can't give up!"</p> + +<p>"We <i>have</i> to give up. The demons are loose in the Earth, Virgie! +Those people in the headlines—they'll die of young age. So will +others—even plants and animals, and bacteria, as the demons adapt to +them. And then—why not? The air. The rocks, the ocean, even the Earth +itself. Remember, the entropy of the Universe is supposed to tend to a +maximum not only as a whole, but in each of its parts taken in +isolation. The Earth's evolution—reversed. Spottily, and maybe that's +worse, because some parts will evolve forward and others reverse, as +is happening in my own body. Heaven help the world, Old Virgie! And +not just the Earth, because what can stop them from spreading? To the +Moon, the other planets—out of the Solar System, for that matter; to +the other galaxies, even. Why not? And then—"</p> + +<p>"<i>GRECO.</i>"</p> + +<p>An enormous tinny voice, more than human, filled the air. It came from +outside.</p> + +<p>I jumped a foot. It sounded like the voice of a demon; then I got a +grip on myself and understood. It was a loudspeaker, and it came from +outside.</p> + +<p>"<i>GRECO. WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE. COME ON OUT!</i>"</p> + +<p>I had a stabbing sensation of familiarity. "The police!" I cried. +"Greco, it's the police!"</p> + +<p>He looked at me wearily and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No. More likely the F.B.I."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w.jpg" alt="W" width="51" height="40" /></div> +<p>ell, that was it. I got out—I didn't wait for permission from the +Greek.</p> + +<p>I stopped at the door, and three searchlight beams hit me right in the +eye. There were cars all around the laboratory, but I couldn't see +them, not after those lights went on.</p> + +<p>I froze, stiff; wanting to make sure they understood (a) that I wasn't +Greco and (b) that I didn't have a gun.</p> + +<p>They understood, all right.</p> + +<p>But they let me out.</p> + +<p>They put me in one of the cars, with a slim gray-eyed young man in a +snap-brimmed hat sitting politely and alertly beside me, and they let +me watch; and what happened after that wasn't funny at all.</p> + +<p>Greco didn't come out They shouted at him over the loudspeaker and +eventually he answered—his voice little and calm, coming out of +nowhere, and all he said was, "Go away. I won't come out. I warn you, +don't try to force your way in."</p> + +<p>But he knew they wouldn't listen, of course.</p> + +<p>They didn't.</p> + +<p>They tried force.</p> + +<p>And he met it in novel ways with force of his own. The door had locked +itself behind me; they got a fence post for a battering ram, and the +post burst into flame. They found an L-beam from an old bed frame and +tried that, and they were sorry they had done it; the thing melted in +the middle, splattering them with hot drops of steel.</p> + +<p>The polite, alert young man beside me said, not so polite any more, +"What's he doing, you? What sort of fancy tricks has he got in there?"</p> + +<p>"Demons," I said crazily, and <i>that</i> was a mistake, but what else was +I to do? Try to explain Maxwell's equations to a Fed?</p> + +<p>They were trying again—there were fifteen or twenty of them, at +least. They went for the windows, and the windows dissolved and rained +cherry-red wet glass on them. They tried again through the open frames +when the glass was gone, and the frames burst into fire around them, +the blue smoke bleached white in the yellow of the flame and the white +of the searchlights. They tried singly, by stealth; and they tried in +clusters of a dozen, yelling.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="19" height="40" /></div> +<p>t was hopeless—hopeless for everybody, because they couldn't get in +and the Greek could never, never get out; for go away they wouldn't. +Not even when, with <i>poof</i> and a yellow flare, the gas tank of one of +the cars exploded. All that happened was that the man in the +snap-brimmed hat and I leaped out, real quick; and then all the cars +went up. But the men didn't leave. And then the guns began to go off +without waiting for anyone to pull the trigger; and the barrels +softened and slumped and spattered to the ground. But the men still +had bare hands, and they stayed.</p> + +<p>The Greek got wild—or lost control, it was hard to tell which. There +was a sudden catastrophic <i>whooshing</i> roar and, <i>wham</i>, a tree took +flame for roots. A giant old oak, fifty feet tall, I guess it had been +there a couple of centuries, but Greco's demons changed all that; it +took flame and shot whistling into the air, spouting flame and spark +like a Roman candle. Maybe he thought it would scare them. Maybe it +did. But it also made them mad. And they ran, all at once, every one +of them but my personal friend, for the biggest, openest of the +windows—</p> + +<p>And leaped back, cursing and yelling, beating out flames on their +clothes.</p> + +<p>Jets of flame leaped out of every window and door. The old building +seemed to bulge outward and go <i>voom</i>. In half a second, it was a +single leaping tulip of fire.</p> + +<p>The firemen got there then, but it was a little late. Oh, they got +Greco out—alive, even. But they didn't save a bit of the laboratory. +It was the third fire in Greco's career, and the most dangerous—for +where previously only a few of the youthing demons had escaped, now +there were vast quantities of both sorts.</p> + +<p>It was the end of the world.</p> + +<p>I knew it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_y.jpg" alt="Y" width="38" height="40" /></div> +<p>ou know, I wish I had been right. I spent yesterday with Greco. He's +married now and has a fine young son. They made an attractive family +picture, the two healthy-looking adults, strong-featured, in the prime +of life, and the wee toddler between them.</p> + +<p>The only thing is—Greco's the toddler.</p> + +<p>He doesn't call himself Greco any more. Would you, the way the world +is now? He has plenty of money stashed away—I do too, of course—not +that money means very much these days. His brain hasn't been affected, +just his body. He was lucky, I guess. Some of the demons hit the brain +in some of their victims and—</p> + +<p>Well, it's pretty bad.</p> + +<p>Greco got the answer after a while. Both types of demons were loose in +the world, and both, by and by, were in every individual.</p> + +<p>But they didn't kill each other off.</p> + +<p>One simply grew more rapidly, took over control, until it ran out of +the kind of molecules it needed. Then the other took over.</p> + +<p>Then the first.</p> + +<p>Then the other again....</p> + +<p>Mice are short-lived. It's like balancing a needle on the end of your +nose; there isn't enough space in a mouse's short span for balance, +any more than there is in a needle's.</p> + +<p>But in a human life—</p> + +<p>Things are going to have to be worked out, though.</p> + +<p>It's bad enough that a family gets all mixed up the way Greco's +is—he's on a descending curve, his kid is on an aging curve, and +Minnie—did I tell you that it was Minnie he married?—has completed +her second rejuvenation and is on the way back up again.</p> + +<p>But there are worse problems that that.</p> + +<p>For one thing, it isn't going to be too long before we run out of +space. I don't mean time, I mean space. <i>Living</i> space.</p> + +<p>Because it's all very well that the human animal should now mature to +grow alternately younger and older, over and over—</p> + +<p>But, damn it, how I wish that somebody once in a while would <i>die</i>!</p> + +<p class="p1"><b>—WILLIAM MORRISON</b></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Feast of Demons, by William Morrison + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEAST OF DEMONS *** + +***** This file should be named 32010-h.htm or 32010-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/0/1/32010/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Feast of Demons + +Author: William Morrison + +Illustrator: Dillon + +Release Date: April 16, 2010 [EBook #32010] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEAST OF DEMONS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction March 1958. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + A FEAST OF DEMONS + + + By WILLIAM MORRISON + + + Illustrated by DILLON + + + If you want my opinion, old Maxwell should have kept his big + mouth shut ... and then El Greco could not have put Earth in + a frame! + + * * * * * + + + + +I + +That year we were all Romans, and I have to tell you that I look awful +in a toga and short sword, but not nearly as awful as the Greek. + +You go to one of the big schools and naturally you turn out for the +Class Reunion. Why not? There's money there, and good fellowship, and +money, and the chance of a business contact that will do you some +good. And money. + +Well, I wasn't that fortunate--and you can say that again because it's +the story of my life: I wasn't that fortunate. + +I didn't go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. I didn't even go to +Columbia, U.C.L.A. or the University of Chicago. What I went to was +Old Ugly. Don't lie to me--you never heard of Old Ugly, not even if I +tell you it's Oglethorpe A. & M. There were fifty-eight of us in my +graduating class--that's 1940--and exactly thirty turned up for the +tenth reunion. + +[Illustration] + +Wouldn't that turn your stomach? Only thirty Old Grads with enough +loyalty and school feeling to show up for that tenth reunion and +parade around in Roman togas and drink themselves silly and renew old +school ties. And, out of that thirty, the ones that we all really +wanted to see for sentimental reasons--I refer to Feinbarger of +Feinbarger Shipping, Schroop of the S.S.K. Studios in Hollywood, Dixon +of the National City Bank and so on--they didn't show up at all. It +was terribly disappointing to all of us, especially to me. + +In fact, at the feast that evening, I found myself sitting next to El +Greco. There simply wasn't anyone else there. You understand that I +don't refer to that Spanish painter--I believe he's dead, as a matter +of fact. I mean Theobald Greco, the one we called the Greek. + + * * * * * + +I introduced myself and he looked at me blearily through thick +glasses. "Hampstead? Hampstead?" + +"_Virgil_ Hampstead," I reminded him. "You remember me. Old Virgie." + +He said, "Sure. Any more of that stuff left in the bottle, Old +Virgie?" + +I poured for him. It was my impression, later borne out by evidence, +that he was not accustomed to drinking. + +I said, "It's sure great to see all the fellows again, isn't it? Say, +look at Pudge Detweiler there! Ever see anything so comical as the +lampshade he's wearing for a hat?" + +"Just pass me the bottle, will you?" Greco requested. "Old Virgie, I +mean." + +"Still in research and that sort of thing?" I asked. "You always were +a brain, Greek. I can't tell you how much I've envied you creative +fellows. I'm in sales myself. Got a little territory right here that's +a mint, Greek. A mint. If I only knew where I could lay my hands on a +little capital to expand it the way--But I won't bore you with shop +talk. What's your line these days?" + +"I'm in transmutation," he said clearly, and passed out face down on +the table. + +Now nobody ever called me a dope--other things, yes, but not a dope. + +I knew what transmutation meant. Lead into gold, tin into platinum, +all that line of goodies. And accordingly the next morning, after a +certain amount of Bromo and black coffee, I asked around the campus +and found out that Greco had a place of his own not far from the +campus. That explained why he'd turned up for the reunion. I'd been +wondering. + +I borrowed cab fare from Old Pudge Detweiler and headed for the +address I'd been given. + +It wasn't a home. It was a beat-up factory and it had a sign over the +door: + +T. GRECO + +_Plant Foods & Organic Supplies_ + + * * * * * + +Since it was Sunday, nobody seemed to be there, but I pushed open the +door. It wasn't locked. I heard something from the basement, so I +walked down a flight of steps and looked out into a rather smelly +laboratory. + +There was the Greek. Tall, thin, wide-eyed and staggering, he +appeared to be chasing butterflies. + +I cleared my throat, but he didn't hear me. He was racing around the +laboratory, gasping and muttering to himself, sweeping at empty air +with what looked to me like an electric toaster on a stick. I looked +again and, no, it wasn't an electric toaster, but exactly what it was +defied me. It appeared to have a recording scale on the side of it, +with a needle that flickered wildly. + +I couldn't see what he was chasing. + +The fact was that, as far as I could see, he wasn't chasing anything +at all. + +You have to get the picture: Here was Greco, racing around with one +eye on the scale and one eye on thin air; he kept bumping into things, +and every now and then he'd stop, and stare around at the gadgets on +the lab benches, and maybe he'd throw a switch or turn a dial, and +then he'd be off again. + +He kept it up for ten minutes and, to tell you the truth, I began to +wish that I'd made some better use of Pudge Detweiler's cab fare. The +Greek looked as though he'd flipped, nothing less. + +But there I was. So I waited. + +And by and by he seemed to get whatever it was he was looking for and +he stopped, breathing heavily. + +I said, "Hi there, Greek." + +He looked up sharply. "Oh," he said, "Old Virgie." + +He slumped back against a table, trying to catch his breath. + +"The little devils," he panted. "They must have thought they'd got +away that time. But I fixed them!" + +"Sure you did," I said. "You bet you did. Mind if I come in?" + +He shrugged. Ignoring me, he put down the toaster on a stick, flipped +some switches and stood up. A whining sound dwindled and disappeared; +some flickering lights went out. Others remained on, but he seemed to +feel that, whatever it was he was doing, it didn't require his +attention now. + +In his own good time, he came over and we shook hands. I said +appreciatively, "Nice-looking laboratory you have here, Greek. I don't +know what the stuff is for, but it looks expen--it looks very +efficient." + +He grunted. "It is. Both. Expensive and efficient." + +I laughed. "Say," I said, "you were pretty loaded last night. Know +what you told me you were doing here?" + +He looked up quickly. "What?" + +"You said you were in transmutation." I laughed harder than ever. + + * * * * * + +He stared at me thoughtfully, and for a second I thought--well, I +don't know what I thought, but I was worried. He had a lot of +funny-looking things there, and his hand was stretching out toward one +of them. + +But then he said, "Old Virgie." + +"That's me," I said eagerly. + +"I owe you an apology," he went on. + +"You do?" + +He nodded. "I'd forgotten," he confessed, ashamed. "I didn't remember +until just this minute that you were the one I talked to in my senior +year. My only confidant. And you've kept my secret all this time." + +I coughed. "It was nothing," I said largely. "Don't give it a +thought." + +He nodded in appreciation. "That's just like you," he reminisced. "Ten +years, eh? And you haven't breathed a word, have you?" + +"Not a word," I assured him. And it was no more than the truth. I +hadn't said a word to anybody. I hadn't even said a word to myself. +The fact of the matter was, I had completely forgotten what he was +talking about. Kept his secret? I didn't even _remember_ his secret. +And it was driving me nuts! + +"I was sure of you," he said, suddenly thawing. "I knew I could trust +you. I must have--otherwise I certainly wouldn't have told you, would +I?" + +I smiled modestly. But inside I was fiercely cudgeling my brain. + +He said suddenly, "All right, Virgie. You're entitled to something for +having kept faith. I tell you what I'll do--I'll let you in on what +I'm doing here." + +All at once, the little muscles at the back of my neck began to tense +up. + +He would do _what_? "Let me in" on something? It was an unpleasantly +familiar phrase. I had used it myself all too often. + +"To begin with," said the Greek, focusing attentively on me, "you +wonder, perhaps, what I was doing when you came in." + +"I do," I said. + +He hesitated. "Certain--particles, which are of importance to my +research, have a tendency to go free. I can keep them under a measure +of control only by means of electrostatic forces, generated in this." +He waved the thing that looked like a toaster on a stick. "And as for +what they do--well, watch." + + * * * * * + +El Greco began to putter with gleamy, glassy gadgets on one of the +tables and I watched him with, I admit, a certain amount of suspicion. + +"What are you doing, Greek?" I asked pretty bluntly. + +He looked up. Surprisingly, I saw that the suspicion was mutual; he +frowned and hesitated. Then he shook his head. + +"No," he said. "For a minute I--but I can trust you, can't I? The man +who kept my secret for ten long years." + +"Of course," I said. + +"All right." He poured water out of a beaker into a U-shaped tube, +open at both ends. "Watch," he said. "Remember any of your college +physics?" + +"The way things go, I haven't had much time to keep up with--" + +"All the better, all the better," he said. "Then you won't be able to +steal anything." + +I caught my breath. "Now _listen_--" + +"No offense, Virgie," he said earnestly. "But this is a billion +dollars and--No matter. When it comes right down to cases, you could +know as much as all those fool professors of ours put together and it +still wouldn't help you steal a thing." + +He bobbed his head, smiled absently and went back to his gleamy +gadgets. I tell you, I _steamed_. That settled it, as far as I was +concerned. There was simply no excuse for such unjustified insults to +my character. I certainly had no intention of attempting to take any +unfair advantage, but if he was going to act that way.... + +He was asking for it. Actually and literally asking for it. + +He rapped sharply on the U-tube with a glass stirring rod, seeking my +attention. + +"I'm watching," I told him, very amiable now that he'd made up my mind +for me. + +"Good. Now," he said, "you know what I do here in the plant?" + +"Why--you make fertilizer. It says so on the sign." + +"Ha! No," he said. "That is a blind. What I do is, I separate optical +isomers." + +"That's very nice," I said warmly. "I'm glad to hear it, Greek." + +"Shut up," he retorted unexpectedly. "You don't have the foggiest +notion of what an optical isomer is and you know it. But try and +think. This isn't physics; it's organic chemistry. There are compounds +that exist in two forms--apparently identical in all respects, except +that one is the mirror image of the other. Like right-hand and +left-hand gloves; one is the other, turned backwards. You understand +so far?" + +"Of course," I said. + + * * * * * + +He looked at me thoughtfully, then shrugged. "No matter. They're +called d- and l-isomers--d for dextro, l for levo; right and left, you +see. And although they're identical except for being mirror-reversed, +it so happens that sometimes one isomer is worth much more than the +other." + +"I see that," I said. + +"I thought you would. Well, they can be separated--but it's expensive. +Not my way, though. My way is quick and simple. I use demons." + +"Oh, now, Greek. _Really._" + +He said in a weary tone, "Don't talk, Virgie. Just listen. It won't +tire you so much. But bear in mind that this is simply the most +trifling application of my discovery. I could use it for separating +U-235 from U-238 just as easily. In fact, I already--" He stopped in +mid-sentence, cocked his head, looked at me and backtracked. "Never +mind that. But you know what a Maxwell demon is?" + +"No." + +"Good for you, Virgie. Good for you!" he applauded. "I knew I'd get +the truth out of you if I waited long enough." _Another_ ambiguous +remark, I thought to myself. "But you surely know the second law of +thermodynamics." + +"Surely." + +"I thought you'd say that," he said gravely. "So then you know that if +you put an ice cube in a glass of warm water, for instance, the ice +melts, the water cools, and you get a glass with no ice but with all +the water lowered in temperature. Right? And it's a one-way process. +That is, you can't start with a glass of cool water and, hocus-pocus, +get it to separate into warm water and ice cube, right?" + +"Naturally," I said, "for heaven's sake. I mean that's silly." + +"_Very_ silly," he agreed. "You know it yourself, eh? So watch." + +He didn't say hocus-pocus. But he did adjust something on one of his +gadgets. + +There was a faint whine and a gurgling, spluttering sound, like fat +sparks climbing between spreading electrodes in a Frankenstein movie. + +The water began to steam faintly. + +But only at one end! That end was steam; the other was--was-- + +It was ice. A thin skin formed rapidly, grew thicker; the other open +end of the U-tube began to bubble violently. Ice at one end, steam at +the other. + +Silly? + +But I was seeing it! + +I must say, however, that at the time I didn't really know that that +was all I saw. + + * * * * * + +The reason for this is that Pudge Detweiler came groaning down the +steps to the laboratory just then. + +"Ah, Greek," he wheezed. "Ah, Virgie. I wanted to talk to you before I +left." He came into the room and, panting, eased himself into a chair, +a tired hippopotamus with a hangover. + +"What did you want to talk to me about?" Greco demanded. + +[Illustration] + +"You?" Pudge's glance wandered around the room; it was a look of +amused distaste, the look of a grown man observing the smudgy mud play +of children. "Oh, not you, Greek. I wanted to talk to Virgie. That +sales territory you mentioned, Virgie. I've been thinking. I don't +know if you're aware of it, but when my father passed away last +winter, he left me--well, with certain responsibilities. And it +occurred to me that you might be willing to let me invest some of +the--" + +I didn't even let him finish. I had him out of there so fast, we +didn't even have a chance to say good-by to Greco. And all that stuff +about demons and hot-and-cold water and so on, it all went out of my +head as though it had never been. Old Pudge Detweiler! How was _I_ to +know that his father had left him thirty thousand dollars in one +attractive lump of cash! + + +II + +Well, there were business reverses. Due to the reverses, I was forced +to miss the next few reunions. But I had a lot of time to think and +study, in between times at the farm and the shop where we stamped out +license plates for the state. + +When I got out, I began looking for El Greco. + +I spent six months at it, and I didn't have any luck at all. El Greco +had moved his laboratory and left no forwarding address. + +But I wanted to find him. I wanted it so badly, I could taste it, +because I had begun to have some idea of what he was talking about, +and so I kept on looking. + +I never did find him, though. He found me. + +He came walking in on me in a shabby little hotel room, and I hardly +recognized him, he looked so prosperous and healthy. + +"You're looking just great, Greek," I said enthusiastically, seeing it +was true. The years hadn't added a pound or a wrinkle--just the +reverse, in fact. + +"You're not looking so bad yourself," he said, and gazed at me +sharply. "Especially for a man not long out of prison." + +"Oh." I cleared my throat. "You know about that." + +"I heard that Pudge Detweiler prosecuted." + +"I see." I got up and began uncluttering a chair. "Well," I said, +"it's certainly good to--How did you find me?" + +"Detectives. Money buys a lot of help. I've got a lot of money." + +"Oh." I cleared my throat again. + +Greco looked at me, nodding thoughtfully to himself. There was one +good thing; maybe he knew about my trouble with Pudge, but he also had +gone out of his way to find me. So _he_ wanted something out of _me_. + +He said suddenly, "Virgie, you were a damned fool." + +"I was," I admitted honestly. "Worse than you know. But I am no +longer. Greek, old boy, all this stuff you told me about those demons +got me interested. I had plenty of time for reading in prison. You +won't find me as ignorant as I was the last time we talked." + +He laughed sourly. "That's a hot one. Four years of college leave you +as ignorant as the day you went in, but a couple years of jail make +you an educated man." + +"Also a reformed one." + +He said mildly, "Not too reformed, I hope." + +"Crime doesn't pay--except when it's within the law. That's the chief +thing I learned." + +"Even then it doesn't pay," he said moodily. "Except in money, of +course. But what's the use of money?" + + * * * * * + +There wasn't anything to say to _that_. I said, probing delicately, "I +figured you were loaded. If you can use your demons to separate U-235 +from U-238, you can use them for separating gold from sea water. You +can use them for damn near anything." + +"Damn near," he concurred. "Virgie, you may be of some help to me. +Obviously you've been reading up on Maxwell." + +"Obviously." + +It was the simple truth. I had got a lot of use out of the prison +library--even to the point of learning all there was to learn about +Clerk Maxwell, one of the greatest of physicists, and his little +demons. I had rehearsed it thoroughly for El Greco. + +"Suppose," I said, "that you had a little compartment inside a pipe of +flowing gas or liquid. That's what Maxwell said. Suppose the +compartment had a little door that allowed molecules to enter or +leave. You station a demon--that's what Maxie called them himself--at +the door. The demon sees a hot molecule coming, he opens the door. He +sees a cold one, he closes it. By and by, just like that, all the hot +molecules are on one side of the door, all the cold ones--the slow +ones, that is--on the other. Steam on one side, ice on the other, +that's what it comes down to." + +"That was what you saw with your own eyes," Theobald Greco reminded +me. + +"I admit it," I said. "And I admit I didn't understand. But I do now." + +I understood plenty. Separate isotopes--separate elements, for that +matter. Let your demon open the door to platinum, close it to lead. He +could make you rich in no time. + +He had, in fact, done just that for Greco. + + * * * * * + +Greco said, "Here. First installment." He pulled something out of his +pocket and handed it to me. It was metallic--about the size of a +penny slot-machine bar of chocolate, if you remember back that far. It +gleamed and it glittered. And it was ruddy yellow in color. + +"What's that?" I asked. + +"Gold," he said. "Keep it, Virgie. It came out of sea water, like you +said. Call it the down payment on your salary." + +I hefted it. I bit it. I said, "By the way, speaking of salary...." + +"Whatever you like," he said wearily. "A million dollars a year? Why +not?" + +"Why not?" I echoed, a little dazed. + +And then I just sat there listening, while he talked. What else was +there to do? I won't even say that I was listening, at least not with +the very fullest of attention, because that thought of a million +dollars a year kept coming between me and his words. But I got the +picture. The possibilities were endless. And how well I knew it! + +Gold from the sea, sure. But energy--free energy--it was there for the +taking. From the molecules of the air, for instance. Refrigerators +could be cooled, boilers could get up steam, homes could be heated, +forges could be fired--and all without fuel. Planes could fly through +the air without a drop of gasoline in their tanks. Anything. + +A million dollars a year.... + +And it was only the beginning. + +I came to. "What?" + +He was looking at me. He repeated patiently, "The police are looking +for me." + +I stared. "_You?_" + +"Did you hear about Grand Rapids?" + +I thought. "Oh--Wait. A fire. A big one. And that was you?" + +"Not me. My demons. Maxwell demons--or Greco demons, they should be +called. He talked about them; I use them. When they're not using me. +This time, they burned down half the city." + +"I remember now," I said. The papers had been full of it. + +"They got loose," he said grimly. "But that's not the worst. You'll +have to earn your million a year, Virgie." + +"What do you mean, they got loose?" + +He shrugged. "Controls aren't perfect. Sometimes the demons escape. I +can't help it." + +"How do you control them in the first place?" + +He sighed. "It isn't really what you would call controls," he said. +"It's just the best I can do to keep them from spreading." + +"But--you said sometimes you separate metals, sometimes you get +energy. How do the demons know which you want them to do, if you say +you can't control them?" + +"How do you make an apple tree understand whether you want it to grow +Baldwins or Macintoshes?" + + * * * * * + +I gawked at him. "Why--but you don't, Greek! I mean it's either one or +the other!" + +"Just so with demons! You're not so stupid after all, are you? It's +like improving the breed of dogs. You take a common ancestral mutt, +and generations later you can develop an Airedale, a dachshund or a +Spitz. How? By selection. My demon entities grow, they split, the new +entities adapt themselves to new conditions. There's a process of +evolution. I help it along, that's all." + +He took the little slab of gold from me, brooding. + +Abruptly he hurled it at the wall. "Gold!" he cried wildly. "But who +wants it? I need _help_, Virgie! If gold will buy it from you, I'll +pay! But I'm desperate. You'd be desperate too, with nothing ahead but +a sordid, demeaning death from young age and a--" + +I interrupted him. "What's that?" + +It was a nearby raucous hooting, loud and mournful. + +Greco stopped in mid-sentence, listening like a hunted creature. "My +room," he whispered. "All my equipment--on the floor above--" + +I stepped back, a little worried. He was a strange man, skinny and +tall and wild-eyed. I was glad he was so thin; if he'd been built +solidly in proportion to his height, just then he would have worried +me, with those staring, frightened eyes and that crazy way of talking. +But I didn't have time to worry, in any case. Footsteps were +thundering in the halls. Distant voices shouted to each other. + +The hoot came again. + +"The fire whistle!" Greco bayed. "The hotel's on fire!" + +He leaped out of my room into the corridor. + +I followed. There was a smell of burning--not autumn leaves or paper; +it was a chemical-burning smell, a leather-burning smell, a +henyard-on-fire smell. It reeked of an assortment of things, gunpowder +and charred feathers, the choking soot of burning oil, the crisp tang +of a wood fire. It was, I thought for a second, perhaps the typical +smell of a hotel on fire, but in that I was wrong. + +"Demons!" yelled Greco, and a bellhop, hurrying by, paused to look at +us queerly. Greco sped for the stairs and up them. + +I followed. + +It was Greco's room that was ablaze--he made that clear, trying to get +into it. But he couldn't. Black smoke billowed out of it, and orange +flame. The night manager's water bucket was going to make no headway +against _that_. + +I retreated. But Greco plunged ahead, his face white and scary. + +I stopped at the head of the stairs. The flames drove Greco off, but +he tried again. They drove him off again, and this time for good. + +He stumbled toward me. "Out! It's hopeless!" He turned, stared blindly +at the hotel employees with their chain of buckets. "You! What do you +think you're doing? That's--" He stopped, wetting his lips. "That's a +gasoline fire," he lied, "and there's dynamite in my luggage. Clear +the hotel, you hear me?" + +It was, as I say, a lie. But it got the hotel cleared out. + +And then-- + +It might as well have been gasoline and dynamite. There was a purplish +flash and a muttering boom, and the whole roof of the four-story +building lifted off. + +I caught his arm. + +"Let's get out of here," I said. + +He looked at me blindly. I'd swear he didn't know me. His eyes were +tortured. + +"Too late!" he croaked. "Too late! They're free again!" + + +III + +So I went to work for Theobald Greco--in his laboratory in Southern +California, where we replaced some of the things that had been +destroyed. + +And one morning I woke up and found my hair was white. + +I cried, "Greek!" + +Minnie came running in. I don't believe I told you about Minnie. She +was Greco's idea of the perfect laboratory assistant--stupid, old, +worthless to the world and without visible kin. She came in and stared +and set up a cackling that would wake the dead. + +"Mister Hampstead!" she chortled. "My, but ain't you a sight!" + +"Where's Greco?" I demanded, and pushed her out of my way. + +In pajamas and bathrobe, I stalked down the stairs and into the room +that had once been a kitchen and now was Greco's laboratory. + +"Look!" I yelled. "What about _this_?" + +He turned to look at me. + +After a long moment, he shook his head. + +"I was afraid of that," he mumbled. "You were a towhead as a kid, +weren't you? And now you're a towhead again." + +"But my hair, Greek! It's turned _white_." + +"Not white," he corrected despondently. "Yellow. It's reverted to +youth--overnight, the way it happens sometimes. I warned you, Virgie. +I told you there were dangers. Now you know. Because--" + +He hesitated, looked at me, then looked away. + +"Because," he said, "you're getting younger, just like me. If we don't +get this thing straightened out, you're going to die of young age +yourself." + +I stared at him. "You said that before, about yourself. I thought +you'd just tongue-twisted. But you really mean--" + +"Sit down," he ordered. "Virgie, I told you that you were looking +younger. It wasn't just looks. It's the demons--and not just you and +me, but a lot of people. First Grand Rapids. Then when the hotel +burned. Plenty have been exposed--you more than most, I guess, ever +since the day you walked into my lab and I was trying to recapture +some that had got away. Well, I don't guess I recaptured them all." + +"You mean _I_--" + +He nodded. "Some of the demons make people younger. And you've got a +colony of them in you." + + * * * * * + +I swallowed and sat down. "You mean I'm going to get younger and +younger, until finally I become a baby? And then--what then, Greek?" + +He shrugged. "How do I know? Ask me in another ten years. _Look at me, +Virgie!_" he cried, suddenly loud. "How old do I look to you? +Eighteen? Twenty?" + +It was the plain truth. He looked no more than that. Seeing him day by +day, I wasn't conscious of change; remembering him from when we had +gone to school, I thought of him as younger anyway. But he was forty, +at the very least, and he didn't look old enough to vote. + +He said, "I've had demons inside of me for six years. It seems they're +a bit choosy about where they'll live. They don't inhabit the whole +body, just parts of it--heart, lungs, liver. Maybe bones. Maybe some +of the glands--perhaps that' s why I feel so chipper physically. But +not my brain, or not yet. Fortunately." + +"Fortunately? But that's wrong, Greek! If your brain grew younger +too--" + +"Fool! If I had a young brain, I'd forget everything I learned, like +unrolling a tape backwards! That's the danger, Virgie, the immediate +danger that's pressing me--that's why I needed help! Because if I ever +forget, that's the end. Not just for me--for everybody; because +there's no one else in the world who knows how to control these things +at all. Except me--and you, if I can train you." + +"They're loose?" I felt my hair wonderingly. Still, it was not exactly +a surprise. "How many?" + +He shrugged. "I have no idea. When they let the first batch of rabbits +loose in Australia, did they have any idea how many there would be a +couple of dozen generations later?" + +I whistled. Minnie popped her head in the door and giggled. I waved +her away. + +"She could use some of your demons," I remarked. "Sometimes I think +she has awfully young ideas, for a woman who's sixty if she's a day." + +Greco laughed crazily. "Minnie? She's been working for me for a year. +And she was eighty-five when I hired her!" + +"I can't believe you!" + +"Then you'll have to start practicing right now," he said. + +It was tough, and no fooling; but I became convinced. It wasn't the +million dollars a year any more. + +It was the thought of ending my days as a drooling, mewling infant--or +worse! To avert that, I was willing to work my brain to a shred. + + * * * * * + +First it was a matter of learning--learning about the "strange +particles." Ever hear of them? That's not my term--that's what the +physicists call them. Positrons. The neutrino. Pions and muons, plus +and minus; the lambda and the antilambda. K particles, positive and +negative, and anti-protons and anti-neutrons and sigmas, positive, +negative and neutral, and-- + +Well, that's enough; but physics had come a long way since the classes +I cut at Old Ugly, and there was a lot to catch up on. + +The thing was, some of the "strange particles" were stranger than even +most physicists knew. Some--in combination--were in fact Greco's +demons. + +We bought animals--mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, even dogs. We infected +the young with some of our own demons--that was simple enough, +frighteningly simple; all we had to do was handle them a bit. And we +watched what happened. + +They died--of young age. + +Some vital organ or another regressed to embryonic condition, and they +died--as Greco and I would die, if we didn't find the answer. As the +whole world might die. Was it better than reverting past the embryo to +the simple lifeless zygote? I couldn't decide. It was dying, all the +same. When an embryonic heart or liver is called on to do a job for a +mature organism, there is only one way out. Death. + +And after death--the demons went on; the dog we fed on the remains of +the guinea pigs followed them to extinction in a matter of weeks. + +Minnie was an interesting case. + +She was going about her work with more energy every day, and I'll be +blasted if I didn't catch her casting a lingering Marilyn Monroe sort +of look at me when Greco's back was turned. + +"Shall we fire her?" I asked El Greco when I told him about it. + +"What for?" + +"She's disrupting the work!" + +[Illustration] + +"The work isn't worth a damn anyhow," he said moodily. "We're not +getting anywhere, Virgie. If it was only a matter of smooth, +predictable rates--But look at her. She's picking up speed! She's +dropped five years in the past couple weeks." + +"She can stand to drop a lot more," I said, annoyed. + + * * * * * + +He shrugged. "It depends on where. Her nose? It's shortened to about a +fifteen-year-old level now. Facial hair? That's mostly gone. Skin +texture? Well, I suppose there's no such thing as a too-immature skin, +I mean short of the embryonic capsule, but--Wait a minute." + +He was staring at the doorway. + +Minnie was standing there, simpering. + +"Come here!" he ordered in a voice like thunder. "Come here, you! +Virgie, look at her nose!" + +I looked. "Ugh," I said, but more or less under my breath. + +"No, no!" cried Greco. "Virgie, don't you see her _nose_?" Foolish; of +course I did. It was long, beaked-- + +Then I saw. + +"It's growing longer," I whispered. + +"Right, my boy! Right! One curve at least has reversed itself. Do you +see, Virgie?" + +I nodded. "She's--she's beginning to age again." + +"Better than that!" he crowed. "It's faster than normal aging, Virgie! +_There are aging demons loose too!_" + +A breath of hope! + +But hope died. Sure, he was right--as far as it went. + +There _were_ aging demons. We isolated them in some of our +experimental animals. First we had to lure Minnie into standing still +while Greco, swearing horribly, took a tissue sample; she didn't like +that, but a hundred-dollar bonus converted her. Solid CO_{2} froze the +skin; _snip_, and a tiny flake of flesh came out of her nose at the +point of Greco's scalpel; he put the sample of flesh through a few +tricks and, at the end of the day, we tried it on some of our mice. + +They died. + +Well, it was gratifying, in a way--they died of old age. But die they +did. It took three days to show an effect, but when it came, it was +dramatic. These were young adult mice, in the full flush of their +mousehood, but when these new demons got to work on them, they +suddenly developed a frowsy, decrepit appearance that made them look +like Bowery bums over whom Cinderella's good fairy had waved her wand +in reverse. And two days later they were dead. + +"I think we've got something," said Greco thoughtfully; but I didn't +think so, and I was right. Dead was dead. We could kill the animals +by making them too young. We could kill the animals by making them too +old. But keep them alive, once the demons were in them, we could not. + +Greco evolved a plan: Mix the two breeds of demons! Take an animal +with the young-age demons already in it, then add a batch that worked +in the other direction! + + * * * * * + +For a while, it seemed to work--but only for a while. After a couple +of weeks, one breed or the other would gain the upper hand. And the +animals died. + +It was fast in mice, slow in humans. Minnie stayed alive. But the nose +grew longer and facial hair reappeared; simultaneously her complexion +cleared, her posture straightened. + +And then, for the first time, we began to read the papers. + +STRANGE PLAGUE +STRIKES ELGIN + +bawled the Chicago _Tribune_, and went on to tell how the suburbs +around Elgin, Illinois, were heavily infested with a curious new +malady, the symptoms of which were--youth. + +OAKLAND "BABY-SKIN" +TOLL PASSES 10,000 + +blared the San Francisco _Examiner_. The New York _News_ found +thousands of cases in Brooklyn. A whole hospital in Dallas was +evacuated to make room for victims of the new plague. + +And more. + +We looked at each other. + +"They're out in force," said Theobald Greco soberly. "And we don't +have the cure." + + +IV + +The world was topsy-turvy, and in the middle of it Minnie disappeared, +talking hysterically about reporting us to the authorities. I don't +mind admitting that I was worried. + +And the experiments were not progressing. The trouble seemed to be +that the two varieties of demons--the aging and the youthing--were not +compatible; if one took up residence in a given section of an +organism, the other moved out. The more numerous destroyed the weaker; +there was no balance. We tested it again and again in the mice and +there was no doubt of it. + +So far, only the youthing demons were free. But when Minnie left us, +it was only a matter of time. Our carriers--from Grand Rapids and from +the hotel--had spread to California and the East Coast, to the North +and to the South, throughout the country, perhaps by now through the +world. It would be slower with the aging demons--there was only one +of Minnie--but it would be equally sure. + +Greco began drinking heavily. + +"It's the end," he brooded. "We're licked." + +"No, Greek! We can't give up!" + +"We _have_ to give up. The demons are loose in the Earth, Virgie! +Those people in the headlines--they'll die of young age. So will +others--even plants and animals, and bacteria, as the demons adapt to +them. And then--why not? The air. The rocks, the ocean, even the Earth +itself. Remember, the entropy of the Universe is supposed to tend to a +maximum not only as a whole, but in each of its parts taken in +isolation. The Earth's evolution--reversed. Spottily, and maybe that's +worse, because some parts will evolve forward and others reverse, as +is happening in my own body. Heaven help the world, Old Virgie! And +not just the Earth, because what can stop them from spreading? To the +Moon, the other planets--out of the Solar System, for that matter; to +the other galaxies, even. Why not? And then--" + +"_GRECO._" + +An enormous tinny voice, more than human, filled the air. It came from +outside. + +I jumped a foot. It sounded like the voice of a demon; then I got a +grip on myself and understood. It was a loudspeaker, and it came from +outside. + +"_GRECO. WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE. COME ON OUT!_" + +I had a stabbing sensation of familiarity. "The police!" I cried. +"Greco, it's the police!" + +He looked at me wearily and shook his head. + +"No. More likely the F.B.I." + + * * * * * + +Well, that was it. I got out--I didn't wait for permission from the +Greek. + +I stopped at the door, and three searchlight beams hit me right in the +eye. There were cars all around the laboratory, but I couldn't see +them, not after those lights went on. + +I froze, stiff; wanting to make sure they understood (a) that I wasn't +Greco and (b) that I didn't have a gun. + +They understood, all right. + +But they let me out. + +They put me in one of the cars, with a slim gray-eyed young man in a +snap-brimmed hat sitting politely and alertly beside me, and they let +me watch; and what happened after that wasn't funny at all. + +Greco didn't come out They shouted at him over the loudspeaker and +eventually he answered--his voice little and calm, coming out of +nowhere, and all he said was, "Go away. I won't come out. I warn you, +don't try to force your way in." + +But he knew they wouldn't listen, of course. + +They didn't. + +They tried force. + +And he met it in novel ways with force of his own. The door had locked +itself behind me; they got a fence post for a battering ram, and the +post burst into flame. They found an L-beam from an old bed frame and +tried that, and they were sorry they had done it; the thing melted in +the middle, splattering them with hot drops of steel. + +The polite, alert young man beside me said, not so polite any more, +"What's he doing, you? What sort of fancy tricks has he got in there?" + +"Demons," I said crazily, and _that_ was a mistake, but what else was +I to do? Try to explain Maxwell's equations to a Fed? + +They were trying again--there were fifteen or twenty of them, at +least. They went for the windows, and the windows dissolved and rained +cherry-red wet glass on them. They tried again through the open frames +when the glass was gone, and the frames burst into fire around them, +the blue smoke bleached white in the yellow of the flame and the white +of the searchlights. They tried singly, by stealth; and they tried in +clusters of a dozen, yelling. + + * * * * * + +It was hopeless--hopeless for everybody, because they couldn't get in +and the Greek could never, never get out; for go away they wouldn't. +Not even when, with _poof_ and a yellow flare, the gas tank of one of +the cars exploded. All that happened was that the man in the +snap-brimmed hat and I leaped out, real quick; and then all the cars +went up. But the men didn't leave. And then the guns began to go off +without waiting for anyone to pull the trigger; and the barrels +softened and slumped and spattered to the ground. But the men still +had bare hands, and they stayed. + +The Greek got wild--or lost control, it was hard to tell which. There +was a sudden catastrophic _whooshing_ roar and, _wham_, a tree took +flame for roots. A giant old oak, fifty feet tall, I guess it had been +there a couple of centuries, but Greco's demons changed all that; it +took flame and shot whistling into the air, spouting flame and spark +like a Roman candle. Maybe he thought it would scare them. Maybe it +did. But it also made them mad. And they ran, all at once, every one +of them but my personal friend, for the biggest, openest of the +windows-- + +And leaped back, cursing and yelling, beating out flames on their +clothes. + +Jets of flame leaped out of every window and door. The old building +seemed to bulge outward and go _voom_. In half a second, it was a +single leaping tulip of fire. + +The firemen got there then, but it was a little late. Oh, they got +Greco out--alive, even. But they didn't save a bit of the laboratory. +It was the third fire in Greco's career, and the most dangerous--for +where previously only a few of the youthing demons had escaped, now +there were vast quantities of both sorts. + +It was the end of the world. + +I knew it. + + * * * * * + +You know, I wish I had been right. I spent yesterday with Greco. He's +married now and has a fine young son. They made an attractive family +picture, the two healthy-looking adults, strong-featured, in the prime +of life, and the wee toddler between them. + +The only thing is--Greco's the toddler. + +He doesn't call himself Greco any more. Would you, the way the world +is now? He has plenty of money stashed away--I do too, of course--not +that money means very much these days. His brain hasn't been affected, +just his body. He was lucky, I guess. Some of the demons hit the brain +in some of their victims and-- + +Well, it's pretty bad. + +Greco got the answer after a while. Both types of demons were loose in +the world, and both, by and by, were in every individual. + +But they didn't kill each other off. + +One simply grew more rapidly, took over control, until it ran out of +the kind of molecules it needed. Then the other took over. + +Then the first. + +Then the other again.... + +Mice are short-lived. It's like balancing a needle on the end of your +nose; there isn't enough space in a mouse's short span for balance, +any more than there is in a needle's. + +But in a human life-- + +Things are going to have to be worked out, though. + +It's bad enough that a family gets all mixed up the way Greco's +is--he's on a descending curve, his kid is on an aging curve, and +Minnie--did I tell you that it was Minnie he married?--has completed +her second rejuvenation and is on the way back up again. + +But there are worse problems that that. + +For one thing, it isn't going to be too long before we run out of +space. I don't mean time, I mean space. _Living_ space. + +Because it's all very well that the human animal should now mature to +grow alternately younger and older, over and over-- + +But, damn it, how I wish that somebody once in a while would _die_! + + --WILLIAM MORRISON + + * * * * * + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Feast of Demons, by William Morrison + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FEAST OF DEMONS *** + +***** This file should be named 32010.txt or 32010.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/0/1/32010/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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