Dream thief

12

… PACKER DISLIKED ESCAPING FROM Chief Ramm-it made him feel like a low criminal. But he had no other alter. native. He simply could not stand the thought of remaining in the cell another minute, waiting to be picked off like a rat in a basket. Whoever had tried to kill him would try again. He felt certain of that, and certain that this time they would succeed.

Probably last time they had been scared away by Ramm's coming back to the block; next time they would be more thorough. Ramm, for all his help, had demonstrated that he could not protect his prisoner. And though the security chief still main. tained that the safest place for Packer was locked up in his protective cell, Packer disagreed. He had tried it Ramm's way, now he wanted to try it his way.

On his own he would be able to put some distance between himself and his assassins. So, he had escaped, finding the opportunity when he was left alone outside the cell for a few moments while men from housekeeping installed a new couch in his cell. He simply had tapped in a new access code-one that required a single digit. Then he had taken a length of stiff wire from one of the housekeeper's tool carts and slipped it up the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

He waited for the end of the shift-the exact time when his first attack had come-and when he was certain no one was around he produced the wire and went to work on the access panel, bending the wire through the vent holes in the upper portion of the plastic portal.

The burly physicist had been rewarded with success a half hour later when the door slid open. He walked out of the cell block and through the security station like a cat on hot coals. But he had not been seen or challenged.

Now he hurried toward his own quarters in the HiEn section, changing levels and taking the tube tram partway and getting off two stops before his own to backtrack and see if he was being followed.

He reached the HiEn section and went directly to his quarters. While he took precautions against being followed, it never occurred to his trusting heart that his office and living mod would be watched. He entered with the flood of relief which all hunted creatures experience upon reaching the safety of their lairs. His relief proved short-lived.

As his hand moved toward the access plate a voice said, "Don't do that, my friend-if you want to live a little longer."

Packer froze in the darkness. He withdrew his hand and whirled around to face the unseen speaker. He heard a slight creak and a click, and a light struck him in the face.

He blinked and put up his hand. "Who is it?"

"What are you doing here?" his questioner demanded.

The voice was unmistakable. "Kalnikov?"

"Kalnikov-who else?"

Packer saw a hand reach out of the darkness and push the shade of the desk lamp down. The face of the big Russian leaned into the pool of light, grinning. "I am sorry, Olmstead. I had to make sure it was you."

"What are you doing here?"

The pilot shrugged. "I heard you were being held and I came to the only place they would not likely search-the room of one of their own prisoners."

"One of their prisoners-what do you mean? I was under protective custody. Voluntarily."

"Oh, I see. They gained your cooperation at a very cheap price, then."

"Kalnikov, what are you talking about?"

"Ramm and the others. How many others, I do not know yet. But they mean to take over Gotham."

"Ramm?"

Kalnikov nodded slightly. "Didn't you guess? They fooled you completely."

"I guess they did." Packer switched on the lights and crossed the room, collapsing in a chair. Kalnikov settled back at the desk and rested his long arms on the desktop. He looked boyish and bemused, a sly smile jerking the corners of his wide mouth.

"What's so funny, you Soviet sausage? We're both in big trouble."

"I was just thinking how surprised you looked just now. I'm glad it was me that met you rather than someone else."

"You scared me. I wasn't expecting a welcoming committee."

"Your trouble is that in your country you do not have a sufficient tradition of deception to make you naturally suspicious. It is very helpful in situations like this one. It allows you to view your position with a certain amount of objectivity."

"Well then, Comrade Skeptic, what does your naturally suspicious nature tell us we should do?"

"It tells me we should do what freedom fighters in my country have always done-go underground."

"Brilliant!" snorted Packer. "On a donut-even a big tin donut like this one-they'll find us sooner or later. There is no underground."

"My unbelieving friend, there is always an underground. You will be amazed at what we will find. Come now"-the Russian giant got to his feet-"gather up your things. From this moment on we are invisible." …

SPENCE HAD NEVER HEARD an authentic death rattle before. But when he heard it now, he had no doubt what it was: terrible and appalling, these were the last fighting gasps of a human life.

He had been sitting half-asleep beside the boy's sickbed, nodding through the third watch. The boy's mother crouched at the foot of the bed dozing fitfully. Adjani and Gita lay sound asleep in a far corner of the tent; Gita snored softly like a slumbering buffalo mired in his favorite wallow.

At first Spence thought that the rattle, like the gurgle of a broken water pipe, came from outside the tent nearby. He roused himself to look around. The sound came again and he stared in horror at the boy's blue-tinged body. The pale lips parted, the eyes sunken, head tipped back, the young face aged beyond its years by the illness and the glowing fire of fever; the eyelids snapped open and unseeing eyes burned out like black coals. The hideous sound bubbled forth from his young throat.

He watched in mute terror as death grappled hand-to-hand with life for the body of the youngster. Death was winning the contest.

Spence called out in the darkness to Gita and Adjani, fearing to leave the boy's side for an instant lest the inevitable happen. No sound came from his friends; they slept on.

Then, suddenly, the gasp was cut short and an expiring hiss escaped from between the boy's teeth. Spence stared down helplessly. That was it. He was gone. The boy's mother, now fully awake, her eyes wide with terror, sprang forward in a sudden rush of grief, clutching at her child's legs, burying her face in them. For a moment she lay there as though stricken dead herself; then she raised herself up and looked at Spence with eyes full of sorrow and reproach and rushed out of the tent.

Spence was alone with the body.

"No!" he cried. "You can't die!"

He grabbed the small, fragile body in his hands and shook it as an angry child would shake a rag doll. Then, thinking more clearly, he placed his mouth over the boy's nose and mouth and blew gently. He laid the body down and placed the heels of his hands over the boy's heart and gave a quick downward thrust. He blew into the open mouth again and alternated with quick blows to the chest.

"God, don't let this boy die!" Spence prayed, beating on the little chest with the heel of his hand. "Please, God, save him. Please!"

Spence was only partially conscious of the prayer, but he offered it over and over again as he worked, transforming the words into an urgent litany. Sweating and quivering at the same time, head quivering at the same time, he worked like a robot gone berserk, performing his ritual over and over again and mumbling under his breath the plaintive prayer for God to spare the boy's life.

He labored this way for many minutes without response from the child. At last, muscles aching, sweat stinging his eyes, Spence collapsed light-headed over the still body and began to cry.

"God, in this stinking land of death is it too much to ask you to save one life? Where are you? Don't you care?" He sobbed, more out of anger and frustration than sorrow. "Where are you?"

It was no use. God did not intervene in his creation anymore-if he ever did. His eyes and ears were elsewhere, attending the birth or death of a galaxy perhaps, but not to be bothered with the passing of an insignificant goonda boy.

Spence sat up, drying his eyes. He looked sadly at the small body, pale and still in the lamplight. He groaned. "I could have believed in you, God. I almost did." He shook his head; a stirring of regret, as much for his own broken faith-so tentative and unformed-as for the death of the child, passed through him.

"I almost believed." He placed a hand on the boy's forehead and felt the warmth of the fever diminish as the body cooled.

It made no sense, this stupid waste. The sights of the last days flooded back on him. He saw a horde of stump-legged, hunchbacked beggars and starving children pressing gaunt faces toward him. He saw whitened corpses bobbing in the rancid river like so many thousand buoys. He saw the teeming darkness spreading over the city and knew this to be mankind's ancient enemy seeking to destroy the hapless victims cowering beneath its shadow.

"God! Why?" Spence pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Why, why, why?"

The challenge went unanswered.

Spence looked at the young corpse lying so still and light upon the bed. It almost seemed that the slightest breeze would blow the small shell away like a leaf in the wind.

As if in answer to the mental image Spence felt a slight movement in the air and heard the rustle of the wind iii the leaves outside the tent. He raised his head and listened to the night sounds. In the jungle all had become deathly still. Spence fancied he heard footsteps outside the tent, and then heard the bark of a camp dog.

The breeze stirred again, becoming stronger. He felt its coolness on his damp skin. The walls of the tent rippled under it; the lamp flickered and brightened.

And then everything became quiet. The wind stopped. The tent fell into flat folds again. The lamp flame still and dimmed.

The world seemed for a moment to hang balanced on the edge of a thin knife blade. One breath would send it toppling off on one side or the other. Spence held his breath to keep it balanced. He stared down at the dead boy.

In that moment eternities were born, time evaporated. Spence felt its barriers dissolve and flow away. He saw everything in crystalline clarity, hard-edged and in microscopic detail.

The dead boy's pale, almost translucent skin, the tiny black sweep of his eyelashes, the fine rounded curve of his nostrils, the delicate line of his thin, bloodless lips, the silken shaft of each black hair brushing his temples-all this and more Spence saw in a marvel of dumbstruck awe. Each object in his gaze had taken on a fierce, almost painful beauty. He was overwhelmed. He wanted to look away, to close his eyes to keep the sight from burning out his eyes, but dared not. He was held by a power stronger than his own and knew he could not escape it.

Then, as his eyes took in the terrible wonder of the dead boy's body, he saw a tiny flutter just inside the tender hollow of the throat. He heard a sound which seemed to thunder inside his brain, though it must have been barely audible. It was the long, shuddering whisper of breath being drawn into the nostrils and filling the lungs. It was the sound of life reentering the young boy's body.

The breath stopped-Spence wanted to gasp for air himself-and then it was released. The small chest sank. It seemed like an age before the chest rose again.

Slowly the breathing continued, becoming steadier, stronger, and more regular. Spence's mind reeled as he saw color seeping back into the boy's cheeks and the pulse in the throat beating rhythmically.

He knew then that the boy would live and not die. The miracle was complete.

Spence threw himself on the frail body and hugged it to him. He placed a hand on the boy's forehead and felt the warmth of life returning. But the fever was gone.

When Spence raised himself up, dashing tears from his eyes once again, two dark eyes were watching him with curiosity. They blinked at him and then a little hand reached out for his. Spence grabbed it and held it tightly.

He was sitting there, looking into those bemused young eyes, clutching the small hand, when a commotion arose outside the tent. He heard voices, shouts, half-angry cries, and then suddenly the tent was filled with people.

Foremost among them was the goonda chief. Spence glanced around as the crowd tumbled in with a rush. By the expression on Chief Watti's face Spence knew the moment should have been his last-the man held a long dagger in his hand ready to strike. The mother of the boy crouched at his elbow biting the back of her hand. The others hung back-mostly women, already raising a lamentation for the dead boy, and other goondas with their rifles at the ready.

But the bandit leader took one look at his son, lying there With a feeble smile on his lips, holding the hand of his physician, and let out a whoop of jubilation. The dagger spun from his hand. His wife leaped to her son and cradled his thin figure to herself.

Spence stood slowly and looked around. Adjani and Gita, staring and blinking at the confusion around them, rose up and came to stand beside Spence.

"What happened?" said Gita, eyeing the rifle-toting goondas warily. These stared back at the prisoners and shook their heads incredulously.

"You wouldn't believe me," said Spence. "I scarcely believe it myself."

"Did we miss something?" asked Adjani.

Spence turned to regard the boy, now completely enveloped in the embrace of his father.

"No; nothing much."