A Scatter of Stardust by E. C. Tubb Read Free Book Online

snapped his talons. “The parchment, please.”
    “Just a minute.” Chris scanned the paper. The list of essentials was ridiculously short; he supposed that much depended on using the right proportions. In any event it would be a simple matter for any proficient chemist to refine, strain and even synthesize the formula. He glanced up from his reading. “Are you certain that this stiff will grow hair?”
    “On an egg,” assured the demon. He sounded impatient. “Look, buster,” he said. “Just for your information I don’t lie. In fact I don’t know what lying is; that’s how that Faust character managed to swindle me so easily.” He brooded about it for a moment. “Oh, well, I guess that honesty is the best policy after all.” He snapped his talons again. “Just toss in that parchment and let’s get going. I’ve a heavy date and she won’t wait.”
    “Help yourself,” said Chris, and threw the envelope containing the parchment into the pentagram. “It’s been nice meeting you,” he said politely. “Drop in again sometime.”
    “Thanks,” said the demon. He grinned from ear to ear. “I’ll be seeing you.” Then he vanished as Chris released the mental block retaining the force field. He had been right about the noise.
    *
    To a man who has conversed with a demon normal life seems rather tame. During the next three days Chris fretted at everyday routine, waiting impatiently for a friendly chemist to make up the hair-restoring formula and spending his spare time going over the photostats of the parchment he had traded to his guest.
    Having once broken the ice, as it were, Chris had no intention of calling a halt. Privately he considered that he’d had the best of the bargain. He’d swapped a moldy old paper for a modem gold mine, and what he’d done once he could do again. He had no doubt as to the value of his side of the trade. The demon seemed to have been forced to operate under an ethical code which made lying impossible. The poor goon had never had a chance.
    Chris worried a little when he discovered that the envelope containing the parchment had been one bearing his name and address. The old texts were very firm on the fact that under no account should a demon be given such information. And, come to think about it, the demon had said that he was the only member of his race to be snared by the pentagram force field. It could have had something to do with the fact that he was always summoned by name.
    The worry didn’t last long. In the light of modem science demons were pretty poor adversaries. In fact Chris was feeling quite satisfied with himself when, entering his apartment, he suddenly felt himself falling into a cloying darkness. He recovered to find himself stark naked, squatting on a stone floor in a room which seemed to have one belonged to the Inquisition.
    “Hello there!” said a hatefully familiar voice. “I told you that I’d be seeing you.”
    “No!” Chris shook his head, feeling the stunned bafflement of a man who has just had his world, literally, turn upside down. “No. it can’t be!”
    The demon didn’t answer, he didn’t have to. He merely sat lounging in his chair, the torchlight shining from his scales, letting things speak for themselves. He was, Chris noticed, dressed in an elaborate costume of ornamented silks and from time to time he puffed carefully at a shapeless roll of vegetable matter.
    “Bit of a shock, isn’t it?” He reached beside him, selected a second roll of leaves, carefully lit it and threw it toward Chris. “Have a cigar.”
    “Thanks.” Numbly Chris sucked at the roll and felt his lungs curl inside his chest.
    “You’ll get used to it,” soothed the demon. “Well, I suppose that you know why you are here?”
    Chris coughed and shook his head.
    “No? You surprise me.” The demon blew a tattered smoke ring. “It’s usual to pay a return visit. Or didn’t you know that?”
    “No,” said Chris sickly. “I didn’t