Dream thief

17

… WHEN TICKLER LEFT THE lab he did not go directly to his quarters across the corridor from the lab. Instead he put his head down and scurried as fast as his feet would take him to the main axial and then took a lift tube to the eighth and topmost level of the station. He rode the tram along the inner ring radial until the track dead-ended at a blank white wall. Next to a large pressure port in the wall a large sign painted in orange letters read:

Adjacent to the port hung a row of baggy pressure suits limp in their racks like deflated men. Tickler stepped across the trafficway and wormed his way into one of the bulky suits and disengaged it from the rack. He then punched a code into the access plate of the portal and stepped quickly through as soon as the panel slid open wide enough to admit him.

He waited inside the small air lock for the pressure to equalize and then popped the valve. He emerged from the little room into the breathtaking blackness of space. He stood blinking for a moment, looking up into the expanse above him at the stars shining steadily down with their icy light.

Bare spars, like the ribs of an ancient sailing vessel, stuck up out of the darkness. Some of these were hung with rows of red lights to mark portions of the station now under construction. Over the rim of the station's smooth flank floated a work platform loaded with sheets of metal and other materials, all secured beneath steel net to keep them from floating into space. Several robotrucks hovered nearby, tethered to the platform with steel cable.

Not a workman could be seen at any of the several sites, so Tickler proceeded toward a huge cylindrical projection standing at the midpoint of the construction area. Across the top quarter of the cylinder a diagonal band of light, lengthening as the station rotated toward the sun, slashed into the darkness. Ordinarily the whole area would be ablaze with floodlights, but the shift was over and a new one would not come on for a few hours. Tickler had the site all to himself. Still, he wasted no time, but moved ahead quickly and carefully, his magnetic boots clinking over the honeycombed, temporary trafficways set up like scaffolds all around the area. He headed for the cylinder.

When he reached it, he paused only long enough for the portal to slide open to admit him. Once inside and through the air lock he hung up his pressure suit on the rack next to another,already waiting there, and proceeded. A lift tube carried him into the upper section of the silo, and when the panel slid open he stepped into a bare apartment of immense size. At one end a light shone in a pool on the floor. Within the pool two figures waited. One of the figures resembled an egg.

"You are late!" snapped the egg as Tickler approached.

"I came as quickly as I could," explained the breathless Tickler as the egg slowly revolved to display the wizened features of Hocking. "He kept me working all shift. I couldn't very well ask him to excuse me without arousing suspicion, and-"

Hocking grimaced and cut off the excuse. "I have been in contact with Ortu. He is not pleased with the progress we are making. I have taken the blame for our failure upon myself."

"Failure?" Tickler asked, as if he had never heard the word before. He looked to the other figure standing to one side of Hocking's pneumochair. The young man in a cadet's jumpsuit stared back dully.

"I expect," continued Hocking, speaking slow and crisply, "that you and Kurt will find a way to make this up to me. Well?" The eyes flashed from their sunken depths.

Tickler spread his hands. "We have done all you have required of us. I fail to see how we could have anticipated the setbacks arising from the subject's stubbornness."

"I'm not talking about that," cooed the skeletal Hocking. "I am talking about the breakdown in monitoring the subject's every move. Between the two of you, he should never be out of your sight for a moment. Do you know where he is right now?"

"Why, yes. He's in the lab."

"Oh? Do you know this for a fact? Could he not have left the lab as soon as you did? Could he not, in fact, have followed you here?"

Tickler looked worried. He cast a quick glance behind him to see if Spence had indeed followed him to Hocking's secret chambers.

"See!" Hocking shouted. "You do not know! Reston has consistently moved about the station at will, and yet I have stressed time and again how necessary it is to keep him under surveillance during the induction period. It is only by the merest chance that he is still with us!"

Tickler did not speak; he gazed sullenly at the floor.

"But I am raking over old ground. Suffice it to say that if you cannot watch him more closely than you are at present, I will find someone who can…" He allowed the threat to trail off menacingly.

"Now, then," he continued, "I have been thinking. By this time tomorrow we must have everything prepared to try another induction. Reston is ripe for it now, I can feel it. I have given him additional image cues while in dream state. We will increase the psychomotor quotient of the tanti this time-we have, I believe, underestimated our subject's mental strength and willpower. That should not hinder us again, however."

"If it does not kill him," muttered Tickler darkly.

"I heard you perfectly, Tickler. You might as well speak up. I am willing to risk killing him, yes. I'd prefer it to allowing him to slip away again. We cannot suffer that to happen. That is why I want one of you to be stationed with him when the induction takes place."

"No!" Both men gasped at once and looked apprehensively at one another.

"You idiots! The projection will not harm you-it is not tuned to your brain-wave patterns. I want you there to keep an eye on him and to prevent him from escaping again."

"I don't know if it will be that easy. He was acting very strangely today. I think he may suspect something."

"What can he suspect?" Hocking glared at his hirelings. "Answer me! Unless you have been careless again, I cannot see how he can suspect anything."

"Maybe, but I was with him today. I tell you he does."

Hocking dismissed the warning with an impatient jerk of his head. "What if he does suspect something? By tomorrow at this time it won't matter what our brilliant young friend suspects. It will be too late! He will be ours!"