Dream thief

6

… JUST GIVE ME oNE more day. Just one more. What does it matter? You can send your report in the morning. That's all I ask."

Packer, hunched in a form-molding chair at the radio console, tilted back and looked at his friend. Their eyes met and held their gaze. "All right," sighed Packer. "I guess it doesn't matter that much. You've managed to put it off a week already. But you have to tell me why-I don't understand it, this obsession of yours. You must know there's nothing left. It doesn't make sense, Adjani."

The slim brown man nodded thoughtfully and then spoke, lowering his voice cautiously as if he feared he would be overheard. "I had a dream last night," he whispered. "I saw him – Spence. He was alive in some kind of cave or something. He was hurt, but he was alive."

"And you believe this dream of yours?" Adjani nodded slowly.

"Why? Tell me."

"God sometimes speaks to his people in dreams and visions.

I believe this is a sign that I should keep on looking."

Packer frowned. He fingered the switches on the panel before him idly. "A sign? Aren't you being a little melodramatic?" "I don't know what you mean-"

"Nothing, really. Don't mind me." Packer swiveled away. "Look, you go on and do whatever it is you think you have to. But I've got to tell them he's missing at least. And I want you to be on call for some of the sessions, okay? The rest of the time it's up to you. You can even stay here while we're planting the probes. Deal?"

"It's a deal." Adjani remained slouched against the console, smiling down at the burly physicist.

"Now what? You want the keys to my car?"

"I was just thinking that you'd like to believe, too. You'd like to think that he's still alive, wouldn't you?"

"Sure-who wouldn't? To die like that-"

"That's not what I mean and you know it. You would like to believe about the dream. Admit it."

"A11 right. I admit it. Yeah, I'd like to believe that there was something out there watching over us. I wish I could believe it." 'Well, wanting to believe is just a step away from believing. Isn't it?"

He turned and disappeared along the banks of telemetry equipment which formed the communications nook.

"Spooky Injun," muttered Packer as he rose and pushed the chair back and shambled off to check on the progress of his boys who were assembling the probes for the next phase of the terraforming project.

HOCKING'S THIN FINGERS FLUTTERED over the tray of his chair, brushing the tiny knurled impressions. A whine like that of a dog in pain seemed to waver in the air, rising rapidly out of audible range. A circle of light appeared on the floor before him and the egg-shaped chair glided into it and hung there.

In a moment the air around the chair crinkled with a tinkling sound like needles dancing, or slivers of glass breaking. Then, in a spot midway between ceiling and floor, a dull glow appeared and spread into a gleaming blue halo. The interior of the halo sparkled as shapes collided and shifted within it, forming themselves out of pure light.

Hocking waited as the shapes resolved themselves into the familiar features of his dreaded mentor.

Ortu sat with his old head bowed, the folds of his yellow skin hanging slack, eyes closed, unmoving. He appeared wholly without life, but Hocking knew better.

Slowly the hairless head rose and the eyelids opened. Two yellow eyes stared out with cold, reptilian malice. The thin, lipless mouth, drawn into a straight line, frowned, the edges bending down at slight angles. Nothing Ortu did expended the merest fraction more than the absolute minimum of effort whether in thought or motion. He would do only that which was necessary to accomplish his ends, nothing more.

"The broken man summons his master. Why?" The words were cut from ice.

"You asked me to report to you following the latest attempt."

"Yes?"

"We located Reston… on Mars." At the last word Hocking sensed a prickling of interest on the static features of his master- the merest spark in the dull yellow eyes. "I attempted the mindlink as instructed. It failed-or at least I have not been able to reestablish contact. He, of course, may be dead."

"You bungled the procedure again!" Ortu snapped. °"I warned you!"

Hocking glared back. "I did as you instructed. It was no fault of mine. Reston is resourceful, but there is some sort of interference where he is concerned. No one has survived three projections."

Ortu hesitated, something Hocking had never before witnessed. But when he spoke again his voice was flat and controlled once more. "There may be something in what you say – an interference. But we must make certain whether he is dead or alive. Find out and report to me."

"I will do as you say."

The sparkling halo dimmed and faded from view. Hocking saw the ancient features dissolve once more into pools of diffuse light to vanish as the wreath melted away. The pneumochair spun and whisked itself away. Hocking smiled darkly and muttered, "I think it is time to find out just how much Miss Zanderson knows." …

SPENCE LAY SPRAWLED ON the floor of the hive with the brittle pieces of whatever he had fallen over scattered around him. A hard mass of something pressed against his left leg-the remains of the object that had tripped him. From this source he heard the dripping sound.

He reached a trembling hand into the darkness and felt the jagged edge of an object near his elbow. Gingerly he traced the ragged rim with his hand, careful not to cut his glove, lest the liquid prove corrosive. Next he bent his head over the opening his glove had traced and sniffed the contents of what he imagined to be a jug-shaped article of some size. He smelled nothing at all, so lowered a hand inside.

Yes, the receptacle did contain liquid of some sort. He withdrew his hand and brought it close to his face and sniffed again, and then cautiously, knowing the peril, touched a finger to his tongue.

It was water.

Spence nearly jumped out of his surface suit. Shivering with excitement he removed his gloves and threw them aside, hunkering over the top of the vessel. He placed one hand inside and lifted a tiny sip to his lips.

The water tingled on his tongue like electricity. He let it seep into his parched tissues and then cupped his hand for another drink. In this way he eventually quenched his thirst; it took some time, for he was careful not to spill even the tiniest drop. He did not know how long the water would have to last him and he wanted it to go as far as possible.

When he had finished he sat back and, holding the vessel with one hand so that it would not tip over and spill out the remaining ration of water, he fumbled on the floor for his gloves with the other hand. His hand brushed over a raised platform set in the floor. Three oval objects decorated the surface of the platform; they were smooth to the touch like glass, and Spence did what any child born on Earth would have done: he placed his fingers on the center oval and pushed it.

Suddenly the interior of the hive blazed with white light and the air sang with a superhigh-pitched hum. He threw his hand over his eyes and fell on his face.

He waited. Nothing happened.

He cautiously raised his head and saw before him on a low pedestal an oblong object shaped like a coffin and bearing three narrow cylinders topped with spheres. The spheres were transparent and filled with liquid. On the floor beside him sat his own broken sphere next to the low base on which sat the ovals, one of which he had pushed and which apparently had illumined the place. It was this low base or console of sorts he had stumbled over, breaking off the sphere which may have been attached to it.

The light which had blazed so brightly emanated from beneath the pedestal of what looked more than anything like a translucent sarcophagus. It gleamed darkly, its facets like shining scales of a reptile, showing gray as the light came through and around them.

He rose and went to it, rubbing at one of the plates as he would have rubbed at a fogged window pane, trying to peer inside a forbidden room. The contents, if any, could not be clearly made out.

Spence turned once more to the small console. He had pushed the center oval with some effect. Now he chose the oval stone on the right and carefully pressed it.

Again the high-pitched hum and as he watched, eyes riveted on the sarcophagus, one of the three spheres of liquid slowly began trickling through the cylinder and into the murky depths of the mysterious box. When the first sphere was empty the process was continued with the second sphere, and likewise by the third in its turn.

Spence tiptoed to the oblong box and pressed his face to the dim plates. He saw an indistinct mass of intricately interwoven material. It was fibrous and reedy, shrunken and withered, vaguely man-shaped like a mummy. But it was not a mummy. The thing lay in about six centimeters of liquid on which floated, as far as he could make out, a thick film of dust.

He supposed the device to be some kind of machine for growing food. It was the first thing that came into his mind, for with the light and water and the floating nutrients the apparatus reminded him of a greenhouse in miniature, though a greenhouse of a design he was sure no man on Earth had ever seen.

He waited for the last of the liquid in the third globe to trickle into the greenhouse chamber and then he went back and pressed the third oval.

The hum which filled the room now made a deeper sound, and he imagined the interior of the hive growing warmer almost immediately.

He went to the growing tank and placed his hands on the sides. It did feel warmer to the touch, but he could not be certain. He waited for a little while and nothing else happened, or seemed about to.

He decided to conduct a hive-to-hive search to see if he might turn up any more of the strange greenhouses. This he did and was disappointed. Finding no more of the devices nor anything else of interest, he returned somewhat dejected to the first dwelling.

During his search Spence had puzzled over the voice that had beckoned him and thus brought him back from the brink. Twice he had heard it-the first time it had awakened him from the sleep of death just in time. The second utterance had directed him to the hive which, alone of all the others, contained the growing-machine and the water. This had also saved him.

Spence had once seen a map of the world drawn by a sailor in the eighth century. The map conceived of a flat world where known perils were clearly marked. Toward the edges of the world, where the boundary between the known and the unknown had been drawn, the mapmaker had written the words, here be dragons.

Anyone who spoke of the supernatural within Spence's hearing he summarily lumped into the same cast as the ignorant and superstitious Byzantine sailor. Regarding religion, Spence had slightly more respect, but only a shade more. He considered it in its milder expressions a form of harmless do-goodism, the refuge of weaker minds perplexed and frightened by the world they saw and their own inability to change it. It was a psychological holdover from a time long past when men, yearning for order but not knowing how to create it, conjured up a Supreme Being who was not affected by the daily ebb and flow of change, who was not part of the confusion because he stood outside it. And if he did not help resolve the chaos of the world, he at least did not add to it and so was conceived to be benevolent in his dealings with his creatures.

He allowed that faith in this God-Being was a minor virtue of sorts, in the same way kindness to dumb animals or small children was a virtue. He did not mock it as a rule-such virtues had a place in the world-but he did not find anything in it to recommend it for himself.

And yet, he had prayed-if one could call it a prayer-to this same Supreme Being in his own moment of doubt and pain. This, he concluded, had been the act of a drowning man, one who might not have believed in life jackets, but who was nevertheless willing to try one as a last resort before the waters closed over his head forever.

He had done it out of weakness, and understandably so.

But the voice-that was something different. He had heard it.

He could not argue it away; its presence still lingered in his mind.

Spence settled down in the room with the growing-machine to brood and wait for any new developments. He would sleep and wait; if nothing more seemed forthcoming he would take his water and retrace his route back through the tunnels, or try to find another way back to the surface. The latter plan seemed to offer more promise since he doubted he would be able to climb back up along those tunnels with any success: the walls were too smooth and slippery and steep.