Dream thief

13

… HATED LYING TO him like that. I don't enjoy this at all,"

I moaned half full cups of cold coffee f Kalnikov ace-to-face making his – galley final burn for home.

"There was no other way. You know that. We've been over and over it. Why do you keep bringing it up?

"I'm sorry Adjani." Spence looked at his friend's usually, fresh, untroubled face. Now he saw dark circles of fatigue under the black eyes and lines of concern pulling the edges of his mouth into a perpetual frown. "And I'm sorry for mixing you up in this. I had no right-"

"I gave you the right when I asked you to be my friend. Don't ever question it, Spence. Never. Understand?" Adjani lowered his voice-it seemed that they had talked in lowered voices the whole of the trip back. "I know what you think, but you could not have held such a secret inside you for long. It is too great for one man to bear."

"You think Packer is satisfied with the explanation I gave him? He seemed skeptical."

"Leave Packer to me. I've known him for a long time. I'll talk to him again, but don't you say any more. Stick by your story -at least until we figure out what to do next. Will you promise me that much?"

Spence sighed and nodded slowly. "I promise. I won't do anything rash or stupid-at least not without asking you first. But I didn't expect it to be this hard. Really, I-"

"Did you think you had returned from a Sunday picnic? Your life has been changed. You will never be the same, Spence. You have seen things no man has ever seen and you know things now that can… well, change the world. And you can't tell anyone."

Spence stared dully ahead, eyes unfocused, remembering the long sessions he and Adjani had put in during the five-week jour ney back to Gotham. Now, only a few hours more before docking, they were rehearsing it all again.

He had told Packer a story about his having a fight with Adjani and how he had wanted only to get out of the installation for a few minutes to cool off. He hadn't know Adjani was hurt, and hadn't meant to hurt him. The storm blew up and he became disoriented and couldn't find his way back. Spence admitted to having violent spells of anger and frustration lately-probably due to overwork_ and that something had touched him off. Adjani had had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Packer accepted this version of the events in much the same way he accepted Spence's version of his miraculous survival on the surface of an extremely hostile planet-he nodded a good deal and puffed out his cheeks and rubbed his hand through his wiry thatch of copper-colored hair and at last said, "I see. Very interesting." And that had been that.

Packer had not questioned him further about either incident, and that is why Spence felt he had not been believed-Packer had seen through the shabby lie and been too hurt to press the matter further. He wanted to come clean and explain everything just the way it happened. Adjani counseled against this and was still of the same opinion: wait and see.

"You're right, of course," said Spence at length. "It's just that I, ah…"

"I know, I know. You feel very alone right now. Don't worry. I'm with you. Together we'll work this out."

Spence wondered if Adjani knew or guessed there was more to his story than tunnels and a lost city. He had not told him about Kyr-partly out of obligation to the Martian, and partly out of fear that he would not have been believed. This, too, was eating at him. He wondered if he should tell Adjani about Kyr now, or wait for a better time. He decided reluctantly to wait.

He looked glumly into the dark brown stain at the bottom of his cup as if peering into his future and not liking the color of what he saw.

"You think I'm still in danger, don't you?" he said at last.

"Yes, I do. I see no reason to think otherwise." Adjani leaned across the small table. "As soon as we get back I'm going to request data on the Naga superstitions of Northern India and run it through MIRA for a profile. We may see something there that can help us."

"All right. What do I do in the meantime? Go on as if nothing had happened?" -precisely, Nothing did."

"You know, all the while I was in Tso I didn't dream-I mean other than normal dreams. And no blackouts, either. What do you make of that?"

"I don't know. But it is another fact to be considered in our theory."

Spence raised his eyes slowly. "I'm afraid, Adjani. Really afraid. I don't want to go back there. I feel as if he's waiting for me-this Dream Thief of yours-and as soon as I set foot back in Gotham, I'm lost. Powerless."

"Far from it. We will fight him, Spence. And we will win."

"How do you fight a dream?"

"God knows," said Adjani firmly, "and he will aid us."

The signal for return to weightlessness sounded, and Spence and Adjani got up and replaced their cups in the covered bin. For the remaining hours of the flight Spence kept to himself for the most part-the only time he laughed was when a few of the cadets pooled their leftover water ration and created a floating swimming pool in one of the empty cargo holds. Then they all took turns diving through the hanging globule of water.

One of the favorite tricks was to immerse the body completely in the floating sphere, withdrawing arms and legs carefully into the mass of water, and then to swim inside it like fish in a bowl. The effect was hilarious and brought gales of laughter whenever someone accomplished it. Spence, along with nearly everyone else aboard, stripped down to his undershorts and joined in the fun, forgetting for a while his dark secrets.

The rest of the time he sat alone or lay in his safety webbing brooding on his problem; it seemed to increase as they drew nearer the station. He had succeeded in forgetting about it while on Mars-other things, like bare survival, helped him forget. But now it all came back to him and the sense of hopelessness and dread ballooned as the transport streaked toward rendezvous.

Surely, even God-if he existed, which Spence was not yet willing to admit despite what Kyr and Adjani believed-even their God could not help him now. And if he did exist he would not have allowed him to get into such a mess in the first place. That was how he thought about it. Case closed. …

SPENCE HALF EXPECTED THE docking bay to be filled with wives and sweethearts and screaming children all waiting eagerly for their husbands and lovers to return from their voyage. It surprised him to discover that, aside from a few girlfriends of cadets and the docking crew, the area was empty. No cheering crowds, no joyous welcomes.

The absolute routineness of their deboarding disappointed him, but he knew that it was best if he was seen by as few people, as possible on his return. It was for that very reason he had donned a cadet's uniform. He also reminded himself that since he was supposed to be missing, no one would be meeting him. Still, as he disembarked and walked quickly through the milling cadets he found himself searching the faces for one in particular he hoped to see.

He hoped Ari would be there, though he felt foolish for even thinking it. He also remembered with a shock that she most likely considered him dead.

What have I done to her? What have I put her through?

He resolved to go to her at once and started off to find her, but checked himself before running ten steps. It would be dangerous to be seen too soon. He would have to wait and arrange a meeting at a safe place.

Feeling like a spy, and not a particularly glamorous one, he slunk away unobtrusively, lugging his travel frame with him. He regretted not thinking of a way to bind his flightmates to secrecy about his reappearance. That, if it could have been accomplished, might have been a valuable card in his hand. On further thought, however, it would have increased the interest in his case which would have spotlighted him. The best course, the one he was on, was just to lay low and keep out of sight.

He at last reached his quarters; after trying various means to determine whether anyone waited for him inside the lab, he had pressed his ear against the panel and listened for a long time before punching the access plate. The panel slid open at once – there had been no entry code entered in his absence.

He went in.

The rooms, dark and quiet, seemed unusually so to Spence. No one waited for him; the control booth was empty. He guessed no one had been around for several weeks.

He had ignored Adjani's protests to stay far away from the lab; he wanted to see it, to see if it was as he had left it. He would not feel he had made it back until he saw his own room. He would join Adjani later.

He moved across the lab silently and went into his personal quarters to look around. Everything appeared exactly as he had left it-that is, as far as he could remember that he left it. Yet the room looked strange and new. Everything was the same, yet altered and different. Spence felt a telescoping of time upon entering, like he had just left it but a few minutes before and now had returned to find it subtly changed. All that happened since he lest stood in the room now belonged to a weird, fantastic dream. He awakened from the dream to find himself in his own room, but a room he no longer knew it had not been a dream. If he doubted its reality he had only to dip his hand into the inner breast pocket of his jumpsuit to pat the smooth shell-like object Kyr gave him. No, it was no dream.

He slipped his travel frame under the bed without bothering to unpack and sat down in his chair to decide how best to reach Ari. He decided to leave a message for her to meet him in the garden near the fountain.

Spence tapped the message into the ComCen panel and signed it Mary D.-one of Ari's friends. He hoped it would bring her without question. Then he lay on the bed and fell asleep.

He awoke in a better mood and shrugged off his clothes and stopped himself from putting them in the laundry chute. Instead he threw them under his bed and stepped into the sanibooth and just as quickly out to don a fresh blue and gold jumpsuit. Then he crept from his rooms into the main trafficway and hurried down to meet Ari in the garden.

By the time he reached the garden level his heart was tripping along at an alarming rate. He glanced guiltily around and then stepped off the pathway and into a shaded nook out of sight to wait for her.

He heard steps along the pathway and voices and peered from his seclusion to see two members of the secretarial section gaily flouncing along in full gossip. He swallowed hard and noticed a lump in his throat; he had not been so affected by meeting someone since fifth form when he asked Beatrice Mercer to the Young Astronaut's Annual Dinner Dance. The absurd feeling that at any minute his onetime dancing partner would appear grew unbearable. He shrank back further into the shadows.

He waited; beads of perspiration formed on his forehead from the humidity and his hands grew clammy. I'm falling to pieces. I'm acting like a fourteen-year-old on his first date. He forced himself to take deep calming breaths, and then felt woozy, and mildly hyperventilated.

When he felt he could no longer stand the waiting he heard the crisp, unmistakable footsteps of Ari pattering along the pathway. She had come. He smelled the fresh scent of lemons a split second before he saw her and stepped from the bower.

It was to Ari's credit that she did not collapse in a dead faint on the spot. Her hands fluttered like frightened birds to her mouth; her eyes grew round, showing white all around; her lovely jaw dropped open and a little pinched scream passed her lips.

"Eeee!"

"Hello, Ari." He had tried to think of something in some way appropriate for this meeting, but that was the best he could come up with.

"You… how? Oh!"

The next instant she was in his arms, her trembling hands touching his face, squeezing his flesh as if to make certain that it was solid, alive. He clung to her and filled his soul with her living, breathing essence.

"Spence, oh Spence…" she said over and over.

He felt a wet spot on his neck and when he pulled her from him to look at her at arm's length he saw the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Forgive me," he murmured, drawing her to him once more. "There was no other way. I had to-"

"Shh, don't talk. Don't say anything. Oh, darling. They said you were-oh, you're not. You're here!"

"I'm here."

"I never thought I'd see you again." She broke from him and expressions of pain, anger, and mingled joy crossed her face in complex patterns. "I never hoped, never dreamed… I cried for you. How I cried for you. For so long no word. Nothing."

She looked about to stomp off in anger at his thoughtlessness. He groped for the words to tell her of his own sorrow at hurting her, but there were no words. He hung his head.

The next moment he felt her cool hand on his cheek and he raised his eyes to meet hers. "I never thought I'd see you again, either," he said. "I-I'm sorry. I love you."

Ari pressed herself to him in a tight embrace. "I love you, too, Spencer. Never leave me again."

"We have to get away somewhere private where we can talk. No one else on Gotham knows I've returned-yet. I'd like to keep it that way for a little while longer if I can."

"Come on, I know a secret place here in the garden where we can be alone. I discovered it when I first came here. No one else seems to know about it."

She led him along, his hand clamped tightly in her own, to a place where one of the little artificial creeks bubbled out from a fern-covered bank. She parted the ferns and jumped lightly across the water. Spence followed her and found himself in a cool green shade sweet with the smell of gardenias. He looked around and saw bushes of the fragrant flowers, luminous against their waxy dark green leaves.

Ari pulled him down onto a soft bed of long grass. For a moment all he heard was the burbling of the brook nearby and the rush of his own pulse in his ears. Then he was kissing her and nothing else in the world existed but the moment and the kiss.

When they parted Ari looked at him, drinking in his presence with dark blue eyes now sparkling with happy excitement.

"Now, then," she said, drawing her knees to her chin and circling them in her arms. "Tell me everything. I want to hear it all."

"It scarcely seems to matter anymore."

"I don't care. I want to hear it. I need to hear it, Spence."

"All right. I won't leave out a single thing," he said and then remembered that the most important part of his tale, his ojourn in Tso with the Martian Kyr, the whole incredible miracle that was, he could not tell her. His heart sank at once.

Ari must have seen what transpired, mirrored in his features.

"What's the matter, love?"

"There is something I can't tell you right now."

She did not make it easier for him. "Oh?" she said, and looked hurt and disappointed.

"At least not yet."

"I understand." She did not understand at all.

"I promise you'll know soon. I don't want there to be any secrets between us ever. For now, though, this is how it must be."

"Of Course." Ari brightened at once. "You know best, Spence. Tell me all you can, then. I won't press you for details.

It's just that you've been away so long, I want to know what you were doing every minute since I saw you last."

Spence took a deep breath and began relating to her all that had happened since he left, starting with the journey and eventual landing on Mars, then on to that first night and the blackout that had sent him wandering lost on the surface with the stoma rising around him. He told of the exhaustion, of nearly freezing to death, of his plunge into the rift valley, and his discovery o f the crevice and tunnel. Then he stopped, uncertain what to say next "There's something in that tunnel you don't want me to know about."

He nodded. "That's right. I shouldn't say any more right now."

Ari stared upward into the leafy canopy overhead; a ray of sunlight slanting through the branches caught her hair and set it ablaze with golden fire. "All right," she said softly. "Even though I'm dying with curiosity, I won't make you. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're here with me and safe."

In the shelter of the hidden nook the two lovers held each other and talked in low, intimate tones, pledging themselves to one another again and again until the closing sunshields cast the garden into a semblance of twilight.

"We'd better go," said Spence, drawing Ari to her feet. He held her close and kissed her once more. "That's until I see you again." "When will I see you again?"

"Tomorrow, I hope. Here. We'll meet here at the same time as today. If I need to get in touch with you before then Mary D. will leave a message."

"You're not going back to the lab?"

"No, I'll be staying with Adjani. You two are the only ones I can trust right now."

"You make it sound very dangerous."

"Well, I think it's best to assume so until we can figure out this whole thing. My keeping out of sight for a while longer might be just the break we need."

"I'll do whatever you want me to. You know that."

"I know." He drew her to him and kissed her lightly. "That's good-bye. Until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow." She slowly turned away and parted the ferns closing the entrance to the shady alcove. "Sleep well, my love. Don't let the Dream Thief get you."

For a moment the words did not register. Then they began to burn themselves into his brain like a laserknife through soft butter. An icy tingle crept up his scalp. "What did you say?" His voice had become a rasping whisper.