Wine of the Dreamers

Thirteen

Sharan Inly looked with distaste at the narrow street. The man from the agency pulled up at the curb and stopped. It was dusk and neon was beginning to flicker.

The agency man pointed toward the place called Joe’s Alibi.

“He’ll be in there, miss. Want me to go yank him out? It’s no place for a girl, and he won’t be in any shape to come willingly.”

“I’ll go in,” she said.

“I better come with you then. You’ll need help with him.”

“If you wish,” she said.

The agency man looked at the grubby children nearby, carefully locked the car before crossing the street with her.

They heard hoarse laughter as they crossed the sidewalk. The laughter and the rumble of conversation stopped as Sharan pushed the screen open and walked in. She walked into the room and then turned to the agency man.

“He’s not here,” she said with sinking heart.

“Take a second look, miss,” he said.

She looked at the man at the table. His chair was tilted back against the wall. His chin was on his chest and he was asleep. His gaunt gray face was stubbled with beard and his open collar was soiled.

Sharan went quickly to the table. “Bard!” she cried softly. “Bard!”

“That his name?” the bartender said in the silence. “We call him the perfessor. He’s what you might call a mascot around here. You want him woke up?”

The heavy-shouldered bartender came around the corner of the bar, tilted Bard’s chair forward, caught him on the front of the stained suit, lifted him effortlessly and slapped his cheek with a full arm swing. It resounded like a pistol shot.

“Take it easy, friend,” the agency man said softly.

Bard opened his eyes owlishly. “Now listen to his act,” the bartender said. “Perfessor! Can you hear me, Perfessor? Tell us about them Martians.”

In a hollow, whisky-hoarse tone, Bard said, “They come to us from a distant planet and take over our souls. They fill our minds with evil and lead us to dark deeds. You never know when they are coming. No one ever knows. We should be on guard.”

“Cute, ain’t he?” the bartender said, grinning.

Sharan curled her fingers and took a half step toward the bartender. “Get away from him,” she whispered.

“Sure, lady. Sure thing. No harm intended.”

Bard found her with his eyes. He frowned. “What do you want?”

“Come with me, Bard.”

“I like it here. Sorry,” he mumbled.

The agency man stepped around her. He caught Bard’s wrist, brought it around and up into the small of Bard’s back. Bard made feeble struggles. The agency man marched him to the door as Sharan followed.

“Take good care of the perfessor, sweetheart,” one of the customers said. Sharan flushed. The room was once again filled with laughter.

She unlocked the car and the agency man edged Bard in onto the seat. As soon as Bard was sitting, he fell asleep again. He was between them as the agency man started the car. “Smells a little strong, don’t he?” the agency man said.

Sharan didn’t answer. The rooming house was in the next block. It was a scabrous building, full of the memories of evil, of the wry ghosts of orgy.

“Second floor front,” the agency man said. He woke Bard up. Bard Lane seemed dazed. There was no more protest in him. Sharan followed them up the stairs, the agency man supporting Bard with an arm around his waist. The door was unlocked. The room was tiny, shabby, and the hall was sour and dim.

“You want I should stay and help you, lady?” the man asked.

“Thank you. I’ll take it from here on,” she said. “And thank you.”

“All in the day’s work. Be careful. Some of them go a little nutty when you start to wring them out.”

He had collapsed on the narrow bed. He snored. She unlocked the door behind her and took the key. In an hour she was back with a complete set of new clothes that would fit him. She turned on the single light, cleaned up some of the litter in the room. The bath was across the hall. No shower. Just a tub.

His shoes were cracked and broken things that could have come from a trash barrel. He wore no socks. His ankles were grubby. She laid out his shaving things, the new clothes, in the bathroom.

Then came the nightmare of waking him, of seeing the eyes open vague in the gray face. He no longer seemed to know her. She supported more than half his weight getting him across the hall. He could not help himself. He sat on the stool with his back against the wall and let himself be undressed, like a child. Getting him into the tub was a major engineering project, and then she had to wait until the cold water revived him enough so that she could be sure he did not drown. She went out and brought back a quart of hot coffee. He drank it and looked at her with a bit more comprehension.

“Bard! Listen to me. Clean up and get dressed.”

“Sure, sure,” he mumbled.

From time to time she went back to the bathroom door and listened. She heard him splashing, moving around. Later she heard the scrape of a razor. She bundled his old clothes in the plastex wrapper that had been around the new clothes.

At last he came slowly into the room. He sat down quickly, cupped trembling hands over his eyes. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Rotten, Sharan.”

“There’s some coffee beside you. Better have some.” Even with the container held in both hands, some of the hot coffee spilled out onto the back of his hand.

“You didn’t find a very good answer, did you?” she said.

“Is any answer a good one?”

“Giving up isn’t a good answer.”

“Please. Spare me the violin music. I was discarded. It seemed necessary to act the part.”

“Everybody has a streak of martyr, Bard.”

He stared at her. His eyes were hollow, lifeless. “They fixed me good. They tied the can to me, baby. No lab in the country would touch me. You know that. I had some money saved. I was going to show everybody. I interviewed some accident victims — the ones where I suspected Raul and his gang had a part in it. I took a tape recorder. Know the most common expression? ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ they said. I tried to get a newspaper interested. They talked very pleasantly while they sent for the little men with the nets.”

“I read about it, Bard,” she said softly.

“Good article, wasn’t it? Funny as hell.”

“You haven’t been in the news for a month. The public has a short memory. They’ve forgotten you.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“Feel better now?”

He stared at her. “Dr. Inly, the patient refuses treatment. Why don’t you go exercise a few prefrontal lobes or something?”

She smiled at him. “Don’t be childish. Finish the coffee. We’re going to get you a haircut and a steak — in that order.”

His smile was mild acid. “And why do I merit all this attention?”

“Because you are needed. Don’t be defensive, Bard. Just do as I say. I’ll explain later.”

Dusk was over the city and they were in an oak booth at the back of a quiet restaurant. His eyes were brighter and some of the shakiness had gone out of his hands. He pushed his coffee cup aside, lit her cigarette and his own. “Now it’s time to talk, Sharan.”

“We’ll talk about a mistaken premise, Bard. We assumed that a hypnotic device operated from the other side of this world destroyed the Beatty One. After they delicately told me that I was all through and that I’d be called if there was a vacancy for anyone with my rating, I was... contacted again. With the Beatty One gone, there didn’t seem to be much point in it. I jeered at their fantasy of an alien world. I jeered at our friend, Raul, and at his sister. It took them a long time. I brought Lurdorff in on it. He’s too egocentric to ever doubt his own sanity. And now he believes, too. They’re what they say they are.”

He stared at her without expression. “Go on.”

“Everything he told us appeared to be true. It was the girl who destroyed the ship. She took over the A-six technician named Machielson. She had him overpower the guard. The rest of it went just the way you guessed. Bard, do you remember the time I told you that I wished I could fall in love with you?”

“I remember.”

“Someone else did. The sister. She found out too late. She thought we were figments of her dreams. Now she, like Raul, is convinced that we are reality. The logical processes of most women are rather odd. She and her brother have been helping me look for you. I explained about investigation agencies and how expensive they were. The next day a man stopped me in the street and gave me all of the money out of his wallet and walked on. A second and a third man did the same. That’s the way Raul fixed the money angle. And now we’ve found you.”

Bard stubbed out his cigarette. He laughed softly. “Sort of a long range affair, isn’t it? Raul identified their planet as being near Alpha Centauri. If he gave me a picture of what is actually their world, my lady love has a bald and gleaming skull, the body of a twelve year old child. I can hardly wait.”

“Don’t make a joke out of it, Bard!” she said with some heat. “We need you. If we’re ever going to live up to the promise that we had in the Beatty One, you have to help us.”

“I see. Raul gets one billion people to each hand us a dollar and then we start from scratch.”

She stood up quickly and stubbed out her cigarette. “All right, Bard. I thought you might want to help. I’m sorry. I was wrong. It was good to see you again. Good luck.” She turned away.

“Come back and sit down, Sharan. I’m sorry.”

She hesitated, came back. “Then listen. Of all men on this planet, you have the best overall grasp of the problems involved in the actual utilization of Beatty’s formulas. Some forgotten man on Raul’s planet perfected those formulas roughly thirteen thousand years before Beatty did. Raul has gotten to the ships he told you about. He nearly died in the attempt. When he was gone too long the first time, Leesa went out after him and managed to get him back before he froze to death. He has been in one of the ships a dozen times. He thinks that it is still in working condition. He has activated certain parts of it — the air supply, internal heating. But as far as the controls are concerned, you are the only one who can help. He is baffled.”

“How can I help?”

“We discussed that. He can use your hand to draw, from memory, the exact position of every knob and switch, along with a translation of the symbols that appear on them. If the principle is the same, which he is almost certain that it is, then you should be able to figure out the most logical purpose of each control.”

“But... look, Sharan, the odds against my being right. They’re tremendous. And the smallest mistake will leave him lost in space, or aflame on the takeoff. Or suppose he does find us. Suppose he barrels into our atmosphere at ten thousand miles per second and makes his landing in Central Park or the Chicago Loop district?”

“He’s willing to take the chance.”

She let him think without interruption. He drew aimless lines on the tablecloth with his thumbnail. “What would be gained?”

“What would the Beatty One have gained? And you do read the papers, don’t you? Mysterious crash of stratoliner. Father slays family of six. Bank embezzler throws two millions into Lake Erie. Novelist’s girlfriend buried alive. Auto charges noon crowds on busy street corner. We’ve always considered that sort of thing inexplicable, Bard. We’ve made big talk about irrational spells, about temporary insanity, about the way the human mind is prone to go off balance without warning. Isn’t that sort of thing worth stopping, even at a billion to one chance? Religions have been born out of the fantasies the Watchers have planted in the minds of men. Wars have been started for the sake of amusing those who have considered us to be merely images given the appearance of reality by a strange machine.”

Again the silence. He smiled. “How do we start?”

“We’ve worked out a coordinated time system. Their ‘days’ are longer than ours. We’ll have to go to my place. They expect me to bring you there so that contact can be made. It is quicker than searching each time. We have an hour before we have to get there.”

She had a hotel suite. Bedroom and sitting room. Physically there were two people in the room. Mentally there were four. Bard sat in a deep chair, the floor lamp shining down on the pad he held against his knee. Sharan stood by the window.

Through Bard’s lips, Raul said, “We’ll have to make this a four-way discussion, and so all thoughts will have to be vocalized. How will we make identification?”

Sharan said, “This is Leesa speaking. Raul, when you or I speak, we’ll hold up the right hand. That should serve.”

It was agreed. Bard felt the uncanny lifting of his right hand without his own conscious volition. “In Dr. Lane’s mind, Sharan and Leesa, I still find considerable doubt. He seems willing to go along with us, but he is still skeptical.” The hand dropped.

Bard said, “I can’t help it. And I admit to certain animosity, too. Leesa, as I understand it, ruined Project Tempo.”

Sharan lifted her right hand. “Only because I didn’t understand, then. Believe me, Bard. Please. You have to believe me. You see, I—”

Bard’s right hand lifted and Raul said, “Leesa, we haven’t time for that sort of thing. Don’t interrupt for a moment. I want to draw the instrument panel for Dr. Lane.”

Bard Lane felt the pressure that forced him further back from the threshold of volition. His hand grasped the pencil. Quickly a drawing of an old instrument panel began to take shape. Across the top were what appeared to be ten square dials. Each one was calibrated vertically, with a zero at the middle, plus values above, minus values below the zero point. The indicator was a straight line across the dial resting on the zero point. Below each dial were what appeared to be two push buttons, one above the other. Raul murmured, “This is the part that I cannot understand. I have figured out the rest of the controls. The simplest one is directional. A tiny replica of the ship is mounted on a rod at the end of a universal joint. The ship can be turned manually. From what I have gathered from the instruction manuals, the replica is turned to the desired position. The ship itself follows suit, and as it does so, the replica slowly moves back to the neutral position. Above the ten dials is a three-dimensional screen. Once a planet is approached, both planet and ship show on the screen. As the ship gets closer to the surface, the scale becomes smaller so that actual terrain details appear. Landing consists of setting the ship image gently against the image of the planet surface. Such maneuvering is apparently on the same basis as the Beatty One. But there is no hand control for it. There are diaphragms to strap on either side of the larynx and velocity is achieved through the intensity with which a certain vowel is uttered. I tested that portion of the ship by making the vowel sound as softly as I could. The ship trembled. I imagine that the purpose is to enable the pilot to control the ship even when pressure keeps him from lifting a finger. I feel capable of taking the ship up and landing it again. But unless I can understand the ten dials below the three-dimensional screen, it is obvious that no extended voyage can be made.”

The pressure faded. Bard said, “Have you tried to discover the wiring details behind the dials?”

“Yes. I cannot understand it. And it is so complicated that by memorizing one portion at a time and transmitting that portion to you, I feel that it would take at least one of your years before it would be complete, and then I would have no real assurance that it was entirely accurate.”

“Plus and minus values, eh? How good is your translation of the figures? Is your math equivalent to ours?”

“No. Your interval is ten. Ours is nine. The roughest possible comparison would be to say that your value for twenty is the second digit in our third series.”

“Then the nine plus and nine minus values above and below the zero cover a full simple series. I am always wary of snap judgments, but those dials remind me, unmistakably, of the answer column in any computing device. With ten dials and only plus values alone, you could arrive at our equivalent of one billion. Adding in the minus values, you can achieve a really tremendous series of values. The available numbers could be computed as one billion multiplied by nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. Navigation always assumes known coordinates. Assume, for a moment, that the basic future-past relationship is expressed as plus and minus. Assume further that utilizing the varying frames of temporal reference, it is necessary to cross, at the very most, ten time lines to arrive at the most distant star — the star that, from your position, is equidistant no matter in which direction you start out. Now, for any nearer star, there will be a preferred route. There will be an assumed direction. You will intersect the frames of reference at an assumed point. Thus, your controls should be so set as to take advantage, at the proper fractional part of a second, of your plus-minus, or, more accurately, your future-past distortions. This would mean an index number, starting from your position, for each star — not a fixed index number, but a number which, adjusted by a formula to allow for orbital movement and galactic movement, will give you the setting for the controls. One of the unknowns to fit into the equation before using it is your present value for time on your planet. No. Wait a minute. If I were designing the controls I would use a radiation timing device for accuracy, and have the controls work the formula themselves so that the standard star reference number could always be used.”

“It will have to be that way. It has been centuries since we have maintained any record of elapsed time.”

“The buttons under the dials should be the setting device. The upper button should, with each time you push it, lift your indicator one plus notch. The lower button should drop it, one notch at a time, into the minus values. The final number, placed on the dials, should take you across space to the star for that specific setting. It would be the simplest possible type of control which could be used with the Beatty formulas — far simpler than the one on which we were working. But to use it, you must find somewhere, probably on the ship, a manual which will give you a listing of the values for the stars.”

Bard Lane felt the excitement in Raul Kinson’s thoughts. “A long time ago. Three of your years. Possibly more. I found books printed on thin metallic plates. They did not mean anything to me. Long bi-colored numbers. They were awkward to read compared with the micro-books. I remember the cover design — a stylized pattern of a star and planet system.”

“That could be what you need. But let me make one thing clear. If I’m correct about the controls, and if you should use the wrong setting, you will, in all probability, never be able to find either Earth or your home planet again. You could spend forty lifetimes searching, with the same chance of finding either as of finding two specific motes of dust in the atmosphere of this planet. Make certain that you are quite willing to take the risk.”

Leesa said softly, “Quite willing, Bard.”

“Then find these books again. Study the numbers. See if they will fit the dials. See if you can determine our index number beyond doubt. And then contact me again.”

Pressure on his mind faded quickly. Before it was entirely gone, Bard caught the faint thought: “This dream is ending.”

The two of them were alone in the room. Sharan said softly, “Can he do it? Can he come here?”

He stood up and walked over to the windows. Across the street a couple walked hand in hand under the lights. A line had formed, waiting to get into the video studio.

“What is she like? What are her thoughts like?”

“Like a woman’s.”

“When will they be back?”

“Midnight tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here.”

Ten of the older men were gathered in Jord Orlan’s quarters. They sat stiffly and their eyes glowed. It had taken a long time for Jord Orlan to slowly bring them up to the proper pitch.

“Our world is good,” he chanted.

“Our world is good,” they responded in unison, the half-forgotten instincts rising up within them, hoarsening voices.

“The dreams are good.”

“The dreams are good.”

“And we are the Watchers and we know the Law.”

“Yes, we know the Law.”

Orlan held his arms straight out, his fists clenched. “And they would put an end to the dreams.”

“... an end to the dreams.” The words had a sad sound.

“But they will be stopped. The two of them. The black-haired ones who are strange.”

“They will be stopped.”

“I have tried, my brothers, to show them the errors of their ways. I have tried to lead them into the ways of Truth. But they claim the three worlds are reality.”

“Orlan has tried.”

“I am not a vindictive man. I am a just man. I know the Law and the Truth. They have gone out into the nothingness, out into the emptiness that surrounds us, to look for the worlds of which we dream. Death will be a kindness.”

“A kindness.”

“Seek them out, my brothers. Put them in the tube of death. Let them slide down into the darkness and fall forever through the blackness. I have tried and I have failed. There is nothing else we can do.”

“Nothing else.”

They moved slowly toward the door, then faster. Faster. Jord Orlan stood and heard the pad of their feet against the warm floor, the growling in their throats. And they were gone. He sat down heavily. He was very tired. And he did not know if he had done the right thing. It was too late for doubts. And yet... He frowned. There was a basic flaw in the entire thought process. If outside was a nothingness, how could the two of them go outside and return? To have them do so would indicate that the nothingness was a “somethingness.” And if that were true, then Raul Kinson’s fanatic beliefs had to be given certain credence.

But once Raul Kinson was credited with any correctness, the entire structure of his own beliefs faded and dimmed. Jord Orlan’s head hurt. It was a sad thing to have lived so long in perfect comfort with one’s thoughts and then to have this tiny bitter arrow of doubt festering in his soul. He yearned to pluck it out. Possibly the spy had been mistaken. Possibly they did not go out into the nothingness.

He found himself descending toward the lowest level in great haste. He found the door. It did not take him long to remember the secrets of the twin wheels. He pulled the door open. And this time he dared to keep his eyes open. The wind whipped his cheeks. He squinted into it. The six ships stood tall against the huge red sun. Sand drifted in at his feet. He picked up a handful of it. He closed the door against the wind and leaned his forehead against the metal. He did not move for a long time. He turned and hurried back the way he had come.

Six of them were holding Raul. Raul’s face was twisted with fury and, above the grunting of the captors, Jord Orlan heard the popping and crackling of Raul’s shoulder muscles as he struggled, sometimes lifting his captors off their feet. Four of them were having an equally difficult time with the girl. They held her horizontally, two at her feet and two at her head. Her robe had been flung aside. As Jord Orlan neared them, they rushed with her toward the tube, toward the black oval mouth of it. But she twisted one foot free, planted it against the wall near the mouth of the tube and thrust with all her strength. They staggered and fell with her.

“Stop!” Orlan shouted.

“No!” the captors cried.

“Do you want their death to be easy? The tube is an easy death. Their sin is enormous. They should be thrust out into the emptiness outside to die there.”

He saw doubt on their faces. “I order it!” he said firmly.

And, with Orlan leading, with the two captives no longer struggling, clad once more in robe and toga, the procession left the silent bystanders and went down to the door.

Orlan stopped the captors at the angle in the corridor. “Let them go on to the doorway alone. I shall go with them. If you look on nothingness it will forever blast your eyes and your mind. I will rejoin you when they have left.”

They felt fear and anger, but fear was the stronger. They waited out of sight. Jord Orlan walked with Raul and Leesa.

He said, in a low tone, “I saw the odd garments. You need them to venture outside.”

“What are you trying to tell us?” Raul demanded.

“That... there are things in our world that I do not understand. And before I die, I want to understand... everything. I did not believe the ships were there until I saw them with my own eyes. Now I share your sin. My belief has grown weak. If you could reach another world, then...” He turned away. “Please hurry.”

“Come with us,” Leesa said.

“No. I’m needed here. If your heresies turn out to be true, my people will need someone to explain it to them. My place is here.”

They left and he closed the door, retaining for a moment the image of the two figures leaning against the wind, the six ships in the background. He went back to those who waited and told them very calmly that it was all over.