A Scourge of Screamers is a science fiction novel by Daniel F. Galouye. It was originally published in 1968. It was published in the United Kingdom under the alternate title Lost Perception.
Plot introduction
The story revolves around a spaceflight engineer working for SecBu, the former United Nations Security Bureau which is the only remaining government after a nuclear exchange eliminated all national governments two years before. The exchange is said to have been caused by a Russian who "went Screamie" while at the controls of the missiles on a nuclear submarine. The Screamies is a new disease afflicting people at random around the world. Victims collapse, screaming at visions only they can see.
Strange people plotting against SecBu are revealed to be aliens. SecBu begins a campaign blaming the Screamies on the aliens. The truth however, is much more complex. Earth is emerging into a field of radiation which allows the mind to perceive the world in incredible detail at levels from the microscopic upward. The effect is like that of having functioning eyes, but being raised in darkness until suddenly emerging into daylight (a theme explored also in Galouye's first novel, Dark Universe).
It eventually becomes clear that SecBu is run by people who conquered the Screamies, and are bent on using their enhanced perceptions to gain and hold power. The protagonist is tempted by the power brokers at SecBu, who need his skills, while a close friend sides with the aliens who are attempting to help mankind learn to live with the new perception.
Plot summary
The novel opens in 1997, two years after the nuclear exchange. The "Screamies" have been afflicting humanity since the 1980s.
Arthur Gregson, an American spaceflight engineer, and his close friend Kenneth Wellford, from England, are attacked by an odd flying craft while themselves flying a small plane to a meeting in Rome. They evade their attacker long enough for SecBu military craft to arrive and shoot it down. The experience is too much for Gregson, however, who has to pretend to check out another part of the plane so he can endure yet another of his intermittent Screamie attacks.
Finally reaching their destination, they meet the head of SecBu, Weldon Radcliff, and are shown the corpse of an alien. It is definitely not human, having no hair, no fingernails, and most tellingly, an elaborate double heart. Greg's twin brother Manuel had gone out on the first operational starship, the Nina, which was lost after sending messages about "a glowing ship" and "presences". Radcliff informs Greg and Kenneth that they believe the Nina was attacked by aliens, who are now on Earth and are responsible for the Screamies in some way. A human accomplice of the aliens apparently calls them "Valorians". The particular alien they are shown attempted to assassinate a SecBu official.
Back in New York City Gregson and Wellford are caught up in yet another assassination attempt on an official, and Gregson recognizes one of the assailants as a Valorian. Giving pursuit, he is halted by a Screamie attack after the Valorian reaches into his pocket to activate a device of some kind.
While visiting his fiancée Helen Forsythe and her father in rural Pennsylvania, Gregson follows up on an article in a local newspaper about a farmer who claimed that aliens tried to recruit him to help them. He runs into a group of men and an alien at the farmhouse who interrogate him until SecBu troops arrive. Strangely the men know him and refer to Helen as if she had been working with them.
Summoned to London with Wellford for another SecBu briefing, Gregson hears that Wellford was predicted to go Screamie himself, that very day, by a fortune teller. Since she offered him a refund if she was wrong, Wellford looks forward to collecting. The briefing consists of a show where an apparent drugged Valorian confesses to seeking the conquest of Earth, and to bringing the Screamie disease as a biological weapon. Astonishingly, Weldon Radcliff executes the Valorian in front of his agents. To make matters worse, Wellford goes Screamie, as the fortune teller predicted.
Returning to Pennsylvania Gregson confronts Helen, who admits to talking with the Valorian and being told that the Screamies were the advent of a new perception. By this time SecBu have begun a campaign to convince people that the Valorians are not only hostile but have powers of persuasion amounting to hypnosis. Helen recants her beliefs. Shortly afterward Gregson himself has his ultimate Screamie attack, and is sedated for removal to one of the many Isolation Institutes reserved for Screamers.