A Scatter of Stardust Read Online Free PDF

protuberance lifted over one eye as he tasted the whiskey. “This stuff comparatively recent, too?”
    “You could say that,” admitted Chris. He glanced down at the hand he’d placed within the pentagram. The skin was red and looked as if it had been dipped in a weak acid. “Force field,” he said thoughtfully. “I should have guessed.”
    “Uh?” The demon blinked over an empty glass. “You said something?”
    “Just thinking,” said Chris. He didn’t want to give anything away, and what the demon didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. It was obvious now what all that mumbo jumbo, the spells, the smoke and chanting, the gestures had all been for. It was science, all right, but of rather a peculiar kind. Sounds, vibrations rather, coupled with guided mental energy and the use of unsuspected chemicals in unusual ways. Add them all together, regard them in the light of relationship symbology, stir in a little parapsychology and the demon was solely the product of natural forces.
    A big game hunter, thought Chris. That’s what I am. Sending out my trap to snare a denizen from a coexisting world. Wisk him back here trapped in an intangible force field limited by the pentagram. Break the pentagram and woof! Demon is exposed to an alien environment. Demon can’t live in an alien environment so demon dies. Simple.
    “Simple,” echoed the demon. Chris stared at him with a sudden suspicion that the creature could read his mind. Hastily he put it to the test.
    “If it’s so simple then perhaps you can tell me how it is we can understand each other?” Grimly Chris concentrated on the multiplication tables.
    “Something to do with the pentagram, I guess,” said the demon. “All I know is that I’m talking normally and that you sound to me like me.” He blinked and ran a forked tongue over his lipless mouth. “Some drink you’ve got here. More?”
    “Sure.” Chris looked at the whiskey, hesitated, then dug out a bottle of cooking rum some transient friend had passed off to him at a bottle party. He detested rum, even good rum, and this stuff was strictly for charity. He tossed the bottle toward his guest. “Help yourself.”
    Watching the demon attack the contents of the bottle made Chris more conscious of his power than before. Obviously the demon couldn’t read minds; the force field must also act as a translating device. The ancients, whoever they had been, had certainly stumbled on something when they had devised the demon-calling ritual. Properly investigated and handled it could even solve the problem of interstellar flight. A shuffling from within the chalk marks brought Chris back to the business at hand.
    The demon swayed a little as he squatted on the carpet, the empty bottle clutched in one taloned claw. A discarded cigar had burned a hole in the Wilton and a little pool of sweat had trickled down from the scaled forehead. In the battle between the demons rum had obviously won.
    “Well,” snapped the creature pettishly. “What are we waiting for? How about getting on with the business and letting me go home?”
    It was, thought Chris, a good idea.
    *
    There were preliminaries. Aspirin, bicarbonate, strong black coffee, a hair of the dog which had bitten, and a couple of ice bags filled with cubes from the refrigerator. The force field seemed to be able to translate all these things to suit an alien metabolism; at least, the demon took them all, sullenly but taking them just the same. His recovery was amazing. While his guest muttered and mumbled to himself, Chris concentrated on making the most of his opportunity.
    “I want,” he said, when he thought that the demon was fit enough to sit up and take notice, “I want eternal youth, eternal health, eternal happiness and a charmed life.”
    “Who doesn’t?” snapped the demon. “Act your age, buster. Get sensible.”
    “Forgetting something?” Chris reached for a wet rag. “One wipe of this and you’ll be food for worms.”
    “You think