Eyebright

Ray Aldridge EYEBRIGHT

Kemrin Animoht walked down Motomachi Street. He wasn’t really there.

He dodged the outstretched claws of a legless beggar, veered around a; puddle of vomit, hopped nimbly over a maggoty pile of something unidentifiable — but he didn’t really see any of Howlytown’s ugly sights. His mind was full of the dream episode he would record later that morning at Singh Louie’s studio. Already he could feel the cool embrace of the dream harness, could feel the dream pouring out of his head into the recorder.

That s why he didn’t notice the eyegougers sneaking up behind him.

He thought: Prince Velligon would escape from the dungeons under SilverGilt Keep, with the connivance of beautiful raven-haired Sualn. Yes, yes, and then: Velligon would gather his few faithful retainers for a desperate assault on the Iron Fortress of his evil brother, the Pretender Jam.

Kemrin laughed. With any luck, the battle would surge back and forth, neither side gaining decisive advantage — enough to keep Velligon’s fans happy for at least two or three more dream episodes — before Jam would go down to his inevitable, if temporary defeat. And Velligon would get to spend another hot night with delicious Sualn. Yes, that should please the fans, those quiet folk who lived safe lives within the Pale. They would taste the simpleminded adventures Kemrin imagined for them, and never notice the empty years sipping past.

Its a living, he thought, just before eyegougers pounced on him.

Two big ones grabbed his arms and hustled him into a nearby alley. Kemrin hung suspended in their grip, at first more surprised than alarmed.

«Hey,» he said.

«Shut it,» said the one on the right, a bullnecked, swarthy fellow.Twists of rainbow foil decorated his long red braids.

The man on the left was very tall and very thin. His shaven skull glowed with tattoos, a pattern of big red peonies and little green frogs. His huge knobby hands bit painfully into Kemrin’s arms.

«Hey, ease up,» Kemrin said.

Rainbow released his arm just long enough to thwack the back of Kemrin’s head. Spots danced in Kemrin’s vision.

«Better shut it,» Peonies advised, in high breathless tones.

They went deeper into the alley, finally turning into a dark cul-de-sac. The two heavies threw Kemrin sprawling forward onto his face. He slid through something slimy, to the feet of the largest, palest man he had ever seen.

The man made a sound of displeasure. «He’d better not have any of that muck on his eyes,» the man said, in a mad trembling voice.

«Sorry, boss,» the two heavies said in unison. «Habit,» said Rainbow. «Yeah,» added Peonies. They picked Kemrin up, set him on his feet, brushed the slime from his face.

«One eye’s clean, anyway,» said Peonies.

Kemrin looked up into the man’s face, a vast expanse of puffy white flesh, bisected vertically by narrow pink and lavender beauty stripes. The albino wore his colorless hair in an enormous dredlock tangle. His one good eye had a pink iris; the sclera was stained mauve. An old-fashioned black eye patch covered the other eye. On the patch a holographic eye drawn in hot neon colors winked frantically.

Kemrin couldn’t decide where to look, so he looked at the huge man’s companions. To the right was a statuesque blonde woman, wearing a silver mesh mask and a T-shirt that said Kiss My Razor. To the left was a conservatively dressed young woman with long black hair and an oddly innocent face. Her eyes were large; she did not seem to be enjoying herself.

«Let’s do him,» said the blonde, in a hoarse scratchy voice. «The stink in here is making me dizzy.»

«Let us introduce ourselves,» the huge man said, as if she had not spoken. «You, of course; are Kemrin Animoht, the noted dreamer. I am Asmo Bluedog. Perhaps you’ve heard my name?»

Kemrin tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. «Yes, sir,» he croaked. He’d always thought Asmo Bluedog was a legend, not a real man. Certainly not such a large, ugly, frightening man.

Asmo Bluedog beamed, exposing a mouthful of small pearly teeth. «Ah? Well, that’s pleasant. You’re a polite lad. But I need your eye.»

«What?» Kemrin was confused by the speed of events. «What do you mean?»

«I need to get past Singh Louie’s scanner» Bluedog seemed to lose interest in the conversation. He turned away, flapping a bloated hand at his henchmen. «Go ahead,» Bluedog said. «Time’s a-wasting.»

From her tasteful nearleather purse, the dark-haired young woman produced a spray can of coagulant. Kemrin thought he saw tears trembling on her long lashes, just before the two henchmen flung him on his back.

Rainbow arranged his bulk on Kemrin’s chest, pinning Kemrin’s arms with his knees. From his shirt, Peonies produced a shiny metal instrument, a thing like ice tongs with fangs. The gripping surfaces were articulated so that they curved inward as the device closed. The cutting edges threw a keen glitter. Peonies flexed the instrument once, and it made a series of tiny snicking sounds as the jaws came together.

When Kemrin opened his mouth to scream, Rainbow stuffed in a handful of garbage. Kemrin choked. Rainbow gripped his head, Peonies pried open his left eye, and the gouger descended.

Pain burst in his head, pain unimaginable. Half the world went dark. Peonies jerked out the gouger with a wet tearing sound and a grunt of satisfaction. Kemrin’s remaining vision grew dim, but he saw Peonies inject a stabilizer into the eyeball and offer it to Bluedog, who flipped up his eye patch and pushed the bloody object into the empty orbit.

Kemrin’s brown eye contrasted oddly with Bluedog’s own. A trickle of blood escaped from the socket and dripped down one white cheek.

Kemrin coughed out filth. «Bastard,» he said weakly.

Bluedog drew back, scandalized. «Rude boy!» In an instant the vast face became a demon’s. «I know you,» Bluedog hissed in a thin malevolent voice. «Rich little prig, come down to Howlytown to rub elbows with the romantic rejects, gather a little local color, hope that a little real will stick to you. How’s this for real? How’s this for local color? Eh, boy?» Bluedog’s face was a red cloud, the good eye burned crazily; Kemrin’s stolen eye looked down and away, uninterested.

Bluedog turned his back. «I should kill you!» He jerked back, looked down at Kemrin for the last time. «But I won’t» He smiled and the mad face was placid again. «I'll need the other eye soon enough. Come, all. We have business elsewhere.»

They left. The blonde woman gave Kemrin a spiteful little kick as she stepped over him. The last to go was the dark-haired woman. She knelt beside him for a moment, and squirted coagulant into his injury. With her long fingers she raked most of the garbage from his mouth. «Sorry, sorry…» she whispered so the others couldn’t hear.

Naturally, no one came to his aid. He eventually got to his feet, swaying unsteadily. Crusted with blood and garbage, he shambled through the streets of Howlytown, and everyone left him alone. He reached the Palegate safely; he stumbled up to the retinal scanner and pressed his remaining eye to the sensor.

When the gate slid aside, he stepped through into the Pale, and safety.

Bodrun Depultimar, his agent, came to see Kemrin in the hospital. Bodrun settled his short plump body comfortably on the bed and regarded (пропущен текст)

«So, it came to this, Kemrin? Did I warn you? Tell me I didn’t warn you.» Bodrun leaned forward, tapping Kemrin’s leg for emphasis. «You know what your trouble was?»

«No, but you’ll tell me, won’t you?»

«Hey. You’re pretty smart for a one-eyed guy. You never believed those people down there were real. You thought they were like dream people; you thought if they got too heavy all you’d have to do was jack out. What ever made you think you could walk around Howlytown, pretending you belong there? Kemrin, I said, they’ll cut your throat and steal your shoes.»

«You were wrong.» Kemrin rubbed at the plastic shield that covered his injury.

Bodrun looked away, tugged uneasily at his collar. «Yes,» Bodrun said.

«Well. What else did they get?»

Bodrun shrugged. «Everything, actually. They brought in a floater and cleaned the place out down to the floor. Singh Louie didn’t see a thing, he says.»

«And the dreams?»

Bodrun brightened. «Ah, that’s the good news. The courier got there an hour before they did, and picked up all the current Velligon wafers.»

«And my personal dreams?»

Bodrun’s face fell. He didn’t need to speak.

«Damn,» Kemrin said gloomily.

Bodrun patted Kemrin’s leg. «Cheer up. The equipment’s insured. Now you can come back inside the Pale, where you belong.»

Kemrin sat up straight. «No. You know why. Singh Louie’s got the sweet metal. His biocomps are better than anything Central Dreamways can jack me into legally — all that hot black-market stuff. I ’m not good enough without it.»

«Okay. But you don’t have to sleep down there.»

«No, I’m staying,» Kemrin said. «I came to Howlytown to dream my own dreams. No thief is going to run me off.»

All Kemrin could see was the glitter of Singh Louie’s eyes as the studio owner peered from the slot of his armored safety cage.

«A mecheye? You got a mecheye? What’s wrong with meat? You had pretty eyes.»

Kemrin stroked his cheek, just below the new alloy-and-crystal eye, a gesture that was rapidly becoming habit. «Just a reminder, Singh Louie.I don’t want to forget what I lost.»

«Each to his own. What you want?»

«Studio space. Cable to your core processors.»

«Your gear gone. You got more? You got the cash?»

Kemrin tendered his cashplaque through the baffle. Inside the cage a machine purred.

His plaque popped out through the baffle. «Okay,» Singh Louie said. «You got studio, cable. When your new gear due?»

«Today. Listen, Singh Louie. Your security. it’s not so good. Can you make it better?»

Singh Louie’s voice was scornful. «How? I put a guard on the gate; they send in a rat with a stickybomb. Then I got to pay deathdues and rebuild lobby, and they still get in. I put an EEG idplex on the scanner; next time they cut off your head and hook it to a life-support block. They still get in.»

«But…»

«No but. You wear armor, carry a splinter gun, hire a couple of shield-boys, just like the other Pale-bred toffs who come down to Singh Louie’s, you be okay.»

Kemrin turned away, frustrated. «Would that stop Bluedog?» he muttered.

A sudden electrified rustle came from the cage. «Bluedog? Bluedog rob you? You got troubles, boy. Bluedog madbatnik. Best you go home to the Pale, hope he don’t see you go. Never set foot in Howlytown again. Listen to me!»

«But…»

«But but but. Bluedog he chew you up, suck out juice, spit out skin and bone. Run away!»

Kemrin set his jaw. «He’s just a criminal.»

The cage was silent for a while. Finally, Singh Louie spoke a single word. «Idiot.»

But Kemrin bought a splinter gun; he bought a suit of servo-augmented armor, with a self-contained breather and stunrad shielding.

He took shooting lessons. He learned to shred large, slow-moving targets— if they weren’t too far away.

He went to an armor dojo. The armor instructor worked patiently with him for a week; finally, she threw up her arms in disgust and concentrated on teaching him to run fast in the armor.

Kemrin didn’t hire bodyguards. Rumors of Bluedog’s involvement reached the Howlytown security agencies, and the rates they quoted were beyond his means.

For in-house protection, he acquired a seeker-destroyer robot from a DownLevel weaponslegger. At Kemrin’s nervous request, the legger fitted the robot with non-lethal darts. It patrolled Kemrin’s small habitat, rolling constantly from room to room, sonarscans alert for intruders.

Once he got used to the little metal soldier, it was a comfort.

Kemrin lay in the dream harness. The Velligon dream kept slipping away, and finally he lost it completely, fell into a crack down at the bottom of his imagination.

He sees the dark-haired woman who had been with Bluedog. She is naked lying on an immense suicide wheel, the kind end-of-the-liners come to Howlytown to play, in hopes of gaining a new fortune or, fa i l in g that, an interesting death. Her delicate feet point to the sector of the wheel marked Exsanguination her right am points to Flay-and-Salt, her left arm to Auto-da-Fe, her head to Decapitation. Kemrin can’t see the Jackpot sector; perhaps it is obscured by her luxuriant hair, spilling outward as the wheel slowly turns.

Her body fascinates him, slender, smooth, supple, glistening in the pink flitterlights that bum at the wheel’s perimeter.

Suddenly, she is watching him. He glances at her face, and he sees that her eyes are mecheyes, glittering silver balls. She smiles; she seems to have something in

her mouth.

Her smile widens impossibly; her teeth are tiny white hooks, and between them she holds…

He tries to will himself from the dream. She holds his stolen eye between her fish-bone teeth, and it stares at him, accusing him o f something.

He woke from the dream trance, gasping. He stripped the dream harness from his head.

«God,» he said, trying to stop shaking.

Kemrin walked the streets warily, keeping to the widest brightest places, splinter gun ready in his hands.

Somehow the world had turned for Kemrin. Before, he had walked through Howlytown like a happy sponge, soaking up the rich details of life there. The beggars had seemed colorful then, the cutthroats adventurous, the whores mysterious. Before, he had seen the folk o f Howlytown as no more than vivid icons, threads to be worked into the fabric of his personal dreams, not real, in the sense that Kemrin Animoht was real.

But now they stood revealed as living, breathing unreliable creatures with purposes of their own. Who knew what perversities they harbored in their hearts?

Now the crowding beggars were sinister; perhaps they spied for Bluedog. He brandished his weapon at the cutthroats; they laughed and faded away, but he felt their eyes on his armored back. The whores seemed like shoals of bright carnivorous fish, cold, calculating, hungry.

His personal dreams had changed, darkened. Even his commercial work was affected.

An invisible malevolence pressed around him, a pressure he fearfully identified as Bluedog’s attention.

«Kem,» Bodrun had said on his agent’s last timid venture into Howlytown. «The execs are concerned about you. I mean, Velligon’s been languishing in the dungeon way too long, this time. And Sualn’s having much too good a time with Jarn, don’t you think?»

«Don’t worry. I’ll pull it all together,» Kemrin answered absently.

«I hope so, Kemrin. I really hope so. They’re making uneasy noises up there; they’re talking options and alternatives. Are you hearing me?»

Kemrin forced himself to look properly apprehensive. «I understand. I’ll do better. How ’bout this: Velligon escapes, with the help of Sualn’s beauteous chambermaid, Miskette, who’s carrying his illegal clone-child. They’re hiding out in CloudWorld’s Howlytown, right? Meanwhile, Jam’s critically injured in a fiery floater accident, and all seven of his Dilvermoon exbondmates flock to his bedside and throw Sualn out into Howlytown, where her on the street. Just off the top of my head, Bodrun, but… you see where I ’m going?»

«Yeah, yeah, that sounds like the good old stuff, Kem. But, listen to me. It’s a tight dream season.»

The next attack came after a hard day’s struggle with the new Velligon sequence.

Kemrin approached the foyer o f the building where he lived, trying to look in all directions simultaneously. To each side, slagged-out buildings offered ample concealment to potential ambushers.

Five meters from the safety of the foyer entrance, he heard a low thrum. A stream of soft plastic bullets reached out from a dark doorway and knocked him off his feet. He sprawled, losing his grip on the splinter gun. From the corner of his eye, he saw Rainbow and Peonies hot-footing it toward him, carrying between them a big stickyshock net.

Kemrin scrambled desperately after the gun, caught it on a lucky bounce before it had skittered out of reach. The gun buzzed, and half of Rainbow’s astounded face shredded away into red mist.

Peonies dropped his half of the net, said, «Oh rats,» in a small voice, and dodged back into the doorway before Kemrin could get a bead on him. Kemrin looked stupidly after him for a moment. Then his sense of selfpreservation kicked in, and he made for the foyer as fast as he could crawl.

His first act, on attaining the safety o f his habitat, was to call Bodrun.

«Kem? Is that you, Kem?» Bodrun peered anxiously through the static that afflicted most Howlytown-Pale vid lines.

«Yes, it’s me. Bodrun, you were right. Send an armorcar for my gear, and then come get me. Howlytown’s lost all its glamor.»

Bodrun looked uncomfortable. «Ah. Well. Kemrin, things have changed. Prince Velligon has dropped ten points, right off the bottom o f the Reigger list. Big trouble, buddy. They’ve assessed your account for their losses, and until you build it up again, you’re locked out o f the Pale.»

«How can they do that?»

«How can they do that?»

«Fine print. It looked like a good trade-off, at the time.»

Kemrin felt Howlytown pressing in around him, all teeth and claws and hungry eyes. He was too frightened to be angry. «What can I do?»

Bodnin shrugged. «Hang in there, buddy. They ’re not pulling Velligon from the schedule yet. If you can make him profitable again, they’ll give it all back. Or you can sell some of those serious dreams you went down there to make.»

«But» Kemrin started to say.

«You can do it; I have faith in you, kid.» Bodrun clicked off.

When Kemrin tried to call back, he couldn’t get through. But a moment later his vid chimed, and he stabbed at the ACCEPT switch, hoping for a reprieve.

Asmo Bluedog’s vast face filled the screen. He chuckled throatily.

«Kemrin Animoht, are you there? How long can you hide?» The holographic eye winked madly; the real eye glittered hotly. «You cost me a good boy today, didn’t you? Are you proud?»

Kemrin drew back, horrified. Bluedog’s image slowly faded.

«Oh no. Oh no,» he said. Howlytown lost the last glimmer o f its dark luster, and he wished fervently to be back in the dull safe confines of the Pale.

A week later he found Bluedog’s dark-haired woman in the foyer, sitting against the far wall. Blood had pooled around her, but she was alive. Her eyes focused on him as he entered.

His first impulse was to ignore her; he suspected a boobybomb. But she called out wordlessly, and he remembered her small act of kindness to him.

He approached as closely as he dared. «I'll call a medunit,» he said.

She rolled her head from side to side. «No, please» she said in a tiny dry whisper. «They’ll sell me to a chop shop; I have no cash.»

He considered. Maybe the bomb was inside her. The source o f the blood wasn’t visible; perhaps Bluedog had cut a hiding place. «Where are you; hurt?» he asked.

«It’s not bad, really, nothing serious. My back… I ’ve just lost a little blood. I'll be okay in a while.» Her eyes rolled up; she had passed out.

Eventually, he came to a decision. He went up to his habitat and fetched the seeker-destroyer. He switched it to capture mode and set it on her. It scanned her carefully, found nothing. While it was peeling her off the wall, she woke and screamed as the wounds on her back reopened. But she fainted again immediately.

He followed as the SD brought her up to his habitat, and wondered all the while at his sudden foolishness.

Her back was hard to look at, jellied blood, raw purple meat, a few scraps of fabric embedded in the mess. Kemrin marvelled th a t she still breathed. He assumed he was seeing an example of Bluedog’s fabled skill with a flickwhip. What had she done to irritate the monster?

He had a small personal medic in the habitat. He rolled the unit across the floor to the corner where the SD had left the woman. When he pressed the unit’s switch, the chassis opened and a cluster of probes came weaving out, to touch delicately at her flesh.

Presently, she was obscured beneath a tangle of slender silver cable, and the unit’s telltales glowed red.

Kemrin examined the impulse that had caused him to rescue her. Why had he done it? Because she had been kind? No, it had been an insignificant kindness — though memorable, under the circumstances. Because she was pretty? No. Howlytown teemed with handsome women; most of them for sale at reasonable rates.

Perhaps he hoped to learn something from her, some scrap of information that might help him survive Bluedog’s enmity. Y es, that was probably it.When he had arrived at this rationale, he allowed himself to hope she would survive.

Six hours later, the telltales on the medic had faded to amber, and she woke.

Her eyes were huge, a deep soft violet. Lovely, he thought, startled. Her face was white, still drawn, still taut with fear.

She watched him wordlessly. «Hello,» he said.

She bit her lip and looked away. It suddenly occurred to him that she was afraid, afraid of him. «No, no,» he said. «I won’t hurt you. Bluedog did this?»

She nodded.

«Why?»

She tried to speak, but her voice was a dry whisper. He brought her water, and she drank it greedily.

Her voice was stronger. «Bluedog is a clever man,» she said. «Bluedog wished to show you something ugly. He wished to add the weight of another decision to your load. He foresaw that you would feel guilt if you left me, and anxiety i f you rescued me. He told me to tell you these things if I survived to speak to you.»

Kemrin drew back, appalled. Monstrous Bluedog! «He did this to you just to devil me?»

A tiny smile trembled on her mouth. «Of course. He’s Bluedog. But he was finished with me, anyway»

«Why? Why does he hate me so?»

She looked faintly surprised. «You don’t know? Bluedog hates everyone who doesn’t have to live in Howlytown and comes down here anyway. And now you’ve killed one of his favorites»

«And what are you to Bluedog?»

She didn’t answer immediately. «Tell me,» he said sharply. She cringed away from him, as if expecting to be beaten. He suppressed a pang of unexpected shame. Come now, Kemrin, he told himself firmly. She belonged to Bluedog, after all.

«'Please,» he said. «I need to know everything. I want to stay alive.»

An odd look crossed her face, Pity? He couldn't tell. «I was his mind whore,» she said. She lifted her chin, looked him in the eye, daring him to' say something scornful.

He stood and moved to the far corner of the room. Here was a marvel, a prodigy, a woman whose erotic imagination was capable o f stimulating the hideous Bluedog. «And why did he turn you out.»

Some of the medic’s telltales were edging toward red again. «He’d used me up. That’s what he said.»

Thereafter he left her alone, and soon she slept.

Her name was Leila Tran. Her strength came back quickly. Whenever Kemrin left, he locked her in an inner room and warned her that the seeker-destroyer would kill her if she came out. She accepted the stricture with no evidence of resentment.

She was no whiner. She responded to the sanctuary Kemrin had given her with dignified gratitude. She said very little, and he didn’t attempt to draw her out. She seemed content to exist day by day, and after a time she began to smile, and even to laugh.

«How is it you can be so calm under these circumstances?» he asked her. «What’s wrong with these circumstances? I have enough to eat, a safe place to be, and I’m away from Bluedog.»

He didn’t trust her, of course, but he began to respect her.Each morning, armed and armored, he trooped off to Singh Louie’s atelier, determined to force Prince Velligon into paroxysms o f heroism. But he seemed unable to gather the threads together, unable to do anything with the dream figures he’d lived with for so long.

The numbers reflected this. Each night he would tap into the Pale’s dream channels, and each night he found a relentless drop in usership.One day when the next episode was ready, the courier didn’t come, and Kemrin understood he had been abandoned. While he was unsuccessfully trying to raise Bodrun, Bluedog patched into Kemrin’s vidphone.

Today Bluedog’s beauty stripes were lime green and plum, curved diagonally across the white expanse of his face. Bluedog didn’t say a word, but his good eye sparkled. He raised his huge meaty hand to his eye patch and flapped it vigorously, exposing with each movement the black pit beneath. Kemrin jerked the vid cable from the wall.

He went home and released Leila. When she saw his face, her usual smile faded. «What’s happened?»

He flung himself into a chair. «I’m dead. They’ve cancelled Velligon.»

«I’m sorry. Is it that important?»

He looked up at her, amazed. «Haven’t I ever explained? Velligon was my last chance to get out of Howlytown. The apartment rent’s due in three days. After that, I can live in my studio for a week or so, until Singh Louie puts me out. Then I ’m a goner.»

She looked as if she might cry. It occurred to him that she was probably dead, too. «Or maybe not,» he said. «Maybe I ’ll think o f something»

«The problem is money?»

She sat down, seemed to withdraw into herself. He watched her. She was really quite beautiful, in a subdued, understated way. He felt a surge of regret, for all the sweet possibilities that would be lost when Bluedog killed him. Not that he desired her in particular; he could not forget that she had been Bluedog’s mind-whore.

«How do you think he’ll do it?» he asked, after a while.

«Do what?» She seemed startled, as i f he had distracted her from some deep train of thought.

«Bluedog. How do you suppose he’ll kill me?»

«Kill you? He won’t kill you. That would be too easy. First, he’ll take your other eye and your dream gear. He’ll give you a little time to feel bad about it, then he’ll take your mecheye. Maybe he’ll take your legs, but he’ll leave you at least one good arm. One day he’ll walk down Motomachi Street, and you’ll be there, holding out your begging bowl, and his pleasure will be complete.»

She said it all with such matter-of-fact conviction. He shuddered, and she touched his arm gently. «It hasn’t happened yet, Kemrin. Listen; here’s an idea. Why don’t we move into your studio? The refund on the apartment will keep you going a bit longer, you’ll dream some salable dreams, and I ’ll help you put them on the Howlytown black-market channels. What do you think?»

Her hand was warm, and he thought, How strange that I should notice that at a time like this. «What about Bluedog?»

«What about him? You can’t destroy him; he protects himself too well. You can’t get away from Howlytown, just now, and I assure you that you and Bluedog will never kiss and make up. All you can do is survive, day by day. But what have you got that’s better, at the moment?»

He shrugged, but he felt a touch of inexplicable hope.

They moved to the studio, in the hour before dawn. They made the move unmolested. The seeker-destroyer preceded them through the silent streets, its sensors rotating rapidly, and Kemrin brought up the rear, clutching the splinter gun, head jerking back and forth, heart pounding.

In the studio, Leila exclaimed over the gear. «Beautiful metal,» she said, caressing the main console. «Much better than anything I ever had to work with.»

«Oh?» Kemrin recalled that mind-whoring used much the same equipment as dreaming, the output channel dumping directly to the client’s mind instead of into a wafer recorder. «Well,» he said. «I'll get started.»

But it wasn’t working. No matter what he started out to do, his dreams eventually seemed to focus on Leila; strange, formless, contradictory, suffused with a confused eroticism.

The next night he woke and saw her linked into th e monitor, eyes closed, absorbing his latest attempt. When she was done, she looked at him curiously, smiled. «Mind-whoring is a peculiar talent, a rare knack.»

«I don’t have it?»

«What can I say?» She shrugged gracefully.

«Would you like to try?»

Her smile was brilliant now. «Really?»

«Why not? I’m getting nowhere.»

Leila lay in the dream harness. Her body was relaxed, her eyes half-closed, sightless, twitching, as she followed her internal script. Kemrin watched her, sampled the signal going into the wafer recorder. The signal was clean and strong, and he began to wonder if she might actually be capable of producing a salable dream.

«I won't do porn» she had said earlier, while he was s trapping her into the harness. «I’ve done enough of that to last me forever»

«What, then?»

«Trust me, Kemrin. A lot of people will buy this dream.»

Then she had laughed and pulled down the induction helmet.

After a while, he settled the monitor harness on his head, and jacked into her dream:

Bluedog, leaning over a slender naked man, who appears to have been fastened to a wall of ancient concrete by his arms. Rivulets o f blood drip down the wall

Peonies is there, cradling some sort of weapon, which still smokes. Kemrin suddenly sees that it is a masonry nail gun, and he knows what holds the man to the wall.

At the man’s feet is the wreckage of a fine slithersynth, its keyboard shattered into gleaming bits. Kemrin understands that the man is a musician.

Bluedog speaks: «Must pay, must pay. You know this is the only way.» He pulls an antique razor from his pocket, opens it, and begins to saw at the man’s fingers. Apparently the razor is dull.

The man’s screams rise up the scale until the world is a scream, and a haze of pain obscures the dream.

Here the dream segued from an enhanced and arranged memory into a wholly imaginary segment. The dream was still powerful, saturated, with a remarkable singing intensity. The texture was dense and deep. Kemrin was amazed and horrified and riveted. Mercifully, the viewpoint was detached from the action of the dream, as if observed by an unseen watcher.

The dream cleared.

Bluedog’s victim has become a decayed but still-animated corpse, staring balefully at Bluedog. The man’s fingers lie in the dirt at the base of the wall, bloated and pale.

At first Bluedog is oblivious to the staring corpse; he is busy wiping the blood from his razor. But the more he wipes, the more the blood drips, until a torrent of red is sluicing from the blade, splattering over Bluedog’s white shoes. Bluedog flings it away with a curse, turns, and sees the corpse watching him. The corpse smiles broadly at Bluedog, and some flesh sloughs from its face, exposing wet pink bone.

Bluedog backs off but a steel wall springs up behind him with a sound like an ax falling, and his escape is blocked. He presses against the wall, his vast face quivering with terror.

Peonies reappears in the dream, still clutching the nail gun. A hideous creature forces its way out of the corpse’s decaying mouth, a creature with a hundred cruel hooked legs and pincers and spines. It springs from the corpse to the top of Peonies shaven head, sinks through his tattoed scalp like a crab swimming down into sand.

Peonies’ eyes blaze, and he turns to the cowering Bluedog and fires, stitching Bluedog to the wall. Instead of nails, the gun fires little blue snakes so that in an instant Bluedog is fastened to the steel with a thousand wriggling tearing fanged things.

Bluedog begins to scream, but the sounds that emerge from his straining mouth are oddly musical, great beautiful chords of horror and pain. The dead fingers rise and dance in response, then move to the mangled slithersynth and begin to draw a terrible counterpoint from the instrument. The corpse taps its toes.

Behind Bluedog, on the wall, a large pink stylized heart appears.

Kemrin felt the dream approaching a crescendo, and his heart hammered.

The music keens, blazing with hate and triumph. Bluedog bellows as sweetly as a great pipe organ, and a crack appears in the wall high over Bluedog’s head. Bluedog looks up, and his screams reach new pinnacles of harmonious terror. The crack wanders down the wall, coming inexorably for Bluedog. Bluedog’s good eye bulges, and the wall separates behind him.

The music falls silent. The only sound is the slow tearing of Bluedog’s flesh, the pop of snapping ligaments, the wet crack of bones, as the wall splits Bluedog into two pieces.

A bitter black dust pours from Bluedog’s riven shell A moment later, the dust stirs and a tiny Bluedog emerges, no larger than a mouse. The manikin squeaks in ludicrous rage, runs away.

Kemrin woke, saw Leila’s concerned face. She held a damp cloth to his face.

«Are you all right?» she asked, patting carefully at him. «I pulled the monitor off.»

He sat up, rubbed at his face with shaking hands. «Strong stuff,» he said.

She brightened. «You liked it?»

«No.» He shuddered. «But it was good. I t was great, but we can’t sell that.»

«Why not? Besides, I ’ve already sold it. It’s playing on the blackchannel right now»

He leaped up, horrified. «You’ve sent it out? Oh no, oh no. Bluedog will be frothing»

She smiled fiercely. «Yes! Yes! But he was already bent on destroying you, and I was dead before you found me. Check your account.»

His mouth fell open. But then he plugged in his cashplaque. As he watched, the numbers piled up. Already he was near the Pale’s solvency threshold. «Everyone must be dreaming of Bluedog,» he said, dazed.

«Oh yes. Bluedog has no friends in Howlytown, only slaves and enemies.» Her eyes were bright with pleasure. «Can’t you feel it? Howlytown is laughing!»

He was a little frightened of her, he discovered. «I never asked you how you came to belong to Bluedog.»

She turned away. «He wanted my skills. No one else wanted me more — anyway, no one who could take me away from Bluedog. He was careful never to let me near a weapon. Could any unarmed human ever injure Bluedog? What else is there to say?»

«How long?»

«A year.» The light died from her eyes, and he pulled her close, tried to comforther. She clungtightly, but she never cried.

By midnight, Kemrin was as good as out of Howlytown, his account well over the Pale threshold. According to Leila, he could get past Bluedog if he waited until Bluedog linked to his favorite dream channel, just before dawn.

«Come with me,» he urged her.

She tried to smile. «You know I can’t. I’m an unregistered person, like most of us down here. I can’t even have a cash account. They’d never let me in.»

What would happen to her after he left? «I’ll leave th e little tin soldier with you. You can stay here as long as you want to; I’ll keep paying the rent. You can become the best dreamer in Howlytown, earn enough to have Bluedog assassinated. Or maybe Bluedog will burst from his own meanness.»

She laughed. «Maybe. Oh, that’s very kind, Kemrin.»

But he knew it wouldn’t happen that way. Bluedog would be raging. Singh Louie would eventually give in. Kemrin remembered the fear in Singh Louie’s voice when the subject of Bluedog had a risen. «Isn’t there anyone in Howlytown who isn’t afraid of Bluedog?»

Her smile trembled, as if his thoughts were visible. «A few madmen perhaps; they don’t count, do they? One other, I suppose, a gunlegger named Jarvis Donabel. He’s crazy too, but so heavily cyborged that he fears no one. He’ll sell you anything, any sort of weapon, any kind of bodymod, if you have the cash. Bluedog hates him for his power, but there’s nothing Bluedog can do.»

An idea came to Kemrin, an ugly frightening idea.

At first he shied away from it, tried to forget it, but that didn’t work; it was a horribly practical idea. So then he tried to flatten Leila into a bright empty dream character, he tried to believe she was just another unreal Howlytown bit player. She’s a whore, he thought, just some of the human rubbish that blows around the alleys of Howlytown. Not worth it.

But then he looked at her again, and saw how fine and brave and kind she was. And she saved you from Bluedog, didn’t she? he thought.

«Tell me,» he asked, finally. «How can I find this Jarvis Donabel?»

In his own way, Jarvis Donabel was as much a monster as Bluedog, but he was a cold, impartial monster, much easier to deal with. Donabel held up the merchandise in one great steel claw. «This is what you need.»

«How much?»

Donabel named a huge price. He didn’t bother to reply when Kemrin made a counteroffer. Kemrin rubbed at his cheek. The price would clean out his account, the account that would have gotten him safely out of Howlytown.

They took him a block before he reached Singh Louie’s. A muzzle flash from the alley, a dull crump, and the netgun rolled him into a helpless ball of charged strands. He strained and struggled, but he was well and thoroughly caught.

Peonies was there. The tall man cracked open Kemrin’s helmet with a hydraulic device.

Bluedog rose like a great malevolent storm behind Peonies, rage clotting his pale features.

«YOU!» Bluedog roared. «This is your fault! You let her use your gear; you must make reparations — and you will, never fear. But there’s no time now. We must have her before she makes another dream. Oh, wicked, wicked girl. I’ll never be merciful again!» He jerked aside, gestured to Peonies.

Again the instrument came down, scooped out Kemrin’s remaining human eye. The pain was worse this time. But Kemrin remained conscious as Bluedog pushed the eye into his socket and marched away, trailed by an entourage consisting of Peonies, the blonde woman, and two squat muscular black women carrying heavy-caliber splinter guns.

Kemrin loosened the net enough to get to his hands and knees. His mecheye gave him a clear view o f Bluedog as he approached the scanner at Singh Louie’s. Just before Bluedog put his stolen eye to the sensor, Kemrin dropped flat and covered his head.

The sensor’s probing radiation detonated the filament bomb coiled inside the eye, and the resulting explosion demolished the scanner housing, though the reinforced facade of the building was only scorched. Bluedog and his group were gone.

When red rain stopped falling, Kemrin strugged out of the net and got to his feet, swaying. Blood from the ruined eye socket trickled down his face. But he smiled all the way home.