Dream thief

13

… ARI SAT ON THE small balcony of her room in the tower. The sunlight bathed her upturned face with its warm light and touched her golden hair, transforming it into spun sunbeams. She looked an angel wearing a mortal cloak, but dreaming of its celestial home.

Her thoughts were far from angelic. She had, in the days since Hocking first enlisted her aid, begun to fall into reverie and melancholy. Her father watched her withdraw into herself by degrees until she hardly spoke at all and sat daydreaming for hours at a time on the balcony.

When he ventured to move her from these fits of solitary introspection she would smile wistfully and say, "Oh, don't worry about me, Daddy. I was just thinking…" Though what she was thinking about she would never say. The elder Zanderson had begun to believe that she herself did not know.

He also believed, and rightly so, that it had to do with the visits Hocking paid her, and their trips to who knew where, to do who knew what. She did not speak to him of what went on, and increasingly she resented his continued asking about those secret sessions.

So, he had become a silent worrier. He held his tongue, though it crushed him to see his daughter's spirit withering before his eyes. To fend off the growing sense of dread and doom he felt encircling them he had begun a course of conversation designed to keep her mind occupied and centered on the present.

But even his ebullient monologue failed to prevent the girl's odd moodiness. She would get up in the middle of a sentence and go out on the balcony to sit and stare out into the courtyard or, as she sat now, with her face toward the sun in an attitude of reverence.

His worst fears of a lifetime were taking flesh before his eyes: his daughter seemed to be slipping into the same strange malady that had claimed her mother. And that was almost too much to bear.

"Ari," he said gently, coming to stand beside her on the balcony. "What are you thinking about, dear?"

"Oh, hi, Daddy. I didn't hear you come out."

"I asked what you are thinking about." "Oh, nothing really. I don't know."

"It must be something. You've been out here a long time." A sad smile played on her lips. "Have I? I'm sorry. I left you sitting alone again, didn't I? Oh, well… "

"Ari, look at me." The girl rolled large languid eyes toward him. "I don't want you to go with him when he comes." "Who, Daddy?"

"Hocking. He's putting you under some kind of spell. He's stealing your mind."

"Nonsense!" She laughed, and the sound pattered down like light rain into the courtyard below. "Why would anyone want to do that? It's impossible besides."

"I'm not so sure anything is impossible anymore. But if he hasn't put you under a spell, you tell me what he has been doing. Where do you go? What do you do?"

"We don't go anywhere, really. A room, I think. We don't do anything. Honestly, I have to go… I am helping."

The last was added almost as an afterthought. Zanderson pounced on it like a hungry cat. "Helping? Who are you helping?"

Ari turned her eyes away and gazed out across the wall to the green hills beyond. "I'm… helping…" She could not say more.

"Ari! Look at me! Don't you see what's happening to you? You don't remember why you're doing it. You're not helping, Ari. You're being used. He's using your mind-you're becoming a a vegetable!"

The outburst brought a wispy smile to Ari's lips. She raised her hand to her face and rubbed her cheek distractedly. "I do feel a little funny sometimes. It's so strange…" She turned away again. Her father brought her back, taking her shoulders and turning her around.

"What is strange? What do you remember? Tell me!"

"It's so strange-I feel so sleepy inside, like my head is stuffed with cotton."

"Ari"-he took her hands and pressed them in his own- "promise me you won't go with him any more. You have to stop now before there's nothing left. Will you promise?"

"All right, Daddy. If you like."

"No, darling. It's not for me. It's for you-do it for your own sake. He's destroying you. Don't let him. Resist."

She looked at him vaguely; he wondered if she heard him at all. He decided to try a new approach to make her understand.

Remember when you said that we'd be rescued soon? I believe it now. I do."

"Rescued?"

"You said that Spence knew where we were and he'd come and free us. Well, I think you were right. I think he's coming now.

He'll be here soon."

"Who's coming, Daddy?"

"Spence! That's what I'm telling you. Spence is coming." Ari regarded her father with blank, uncomprehending eyes, as if he suddenly started speaking a foreign language. "I don't think I know who you're talking about."

"Spence! Your Spence-Dr. Reston. Don't you remember" "I don't know him," she replied slowly and turned away again, closing her beautiful blue eyes-now the color of shallow ice pools-and turning her face once more toward the sun. Her father staggered back into their room like a man stunned by a blow; he collapsed, dazed, on a bed of cushions. Then he raised clenched fists to his temples and began to weep. …

THE SUN ROSE A liery red gong above a green hillscape. Three tired travelers witnessed the sunrise with burning eyes. They had been marching through thick forest undergrowth all night and were exhausted and hungry, not having eaten anything substantial for nearly two days-since being expelled from the goonda camp as sorcerers.

The spectacle of the red sun casting its bloodly glare over the thickly forested, steeply undulating hills brought but little cheer to the party. The relatively commonplace sight of the hard – beaten, rock-strewn, crumbling road did, however, improve their spirits somewhat.

"There it is!" shouted Gita. "I see it! Through those trees. There!"

The fat little man dashed through the thinning brush and rushed out onto the old highway. He fell on his knees and kissed its sun-baked surface in a show of heartfelt gratitude, like a primitive seafarer making a successful landfall. "At last, old toothless friend, we meet again," crowed Gita. Adjani and Spence, standIng over him, watched with amusement. "I do not think I have ever seen a sight so wonderful or welcome," he continued, gazing ahead into the distance. "A road is a marvelous thing."

"It beats scratching through jungle, that's for sure," offered Spence. He, too, turned his eyes toward the north and saw the wall of mountains, purple and hazy in the distance, their faces still cloaked in night's gloom. "How far do you think it is?"

Adjani cocked his head and said, "We can't be sure, but I'd say Siliguri is still a hundred kilometers to the north and Dar. jeeling is half again as far."

"Yes, and all uphill from here," said Gita.

"Any chance of hitching a ride?"

"Very doubtful. Merchants are the only ones with vehicles.

Our caravan undoubtedly turned back. Anyway, that was three days ago; even if they decided to go on they would be there by now."

Spence squinted his eyes into the distance. "Well, then we have no other choice. We walk."

Gita let out a small whimpering noise and said, "It seems the road and I are destined to become very good friends. But," he added on a more optimistic note, "I have always wanted to see the mountains."

They turned toward the mountains and began walking along the road, easily falling into stride. Spence noticed that the air seemed lighter, less dense and humid. He took it as a sign that they were beginning to climb ever so slightly up the grade toward the rarefied heights of the mountains. The freshness revived him somewhat, clearing his tired mind and inflating his sagging spirits.

With nothing but the rolling road before him he let his mind wander where it would.

As it had often in the gloomy hours when they traveled by night, the prospect of the impending clash with the Dream Thief intruded on his thoughts. What would happen when they reached their destination he did not know, and hardly dared guess. For now it was enough that some distance still lay between himself and his enemy. He felt in a way secure-although why this should be he could not say, since the Dream Thief had shown himself able to cross astronomical distances to touch those he wished to touch. No barrier seemed able to stop him. And where he was not physically present his underlings were.

Knowing what he knew, it seemed surpassingly strange to Spence that he should be pointing his feet toward the Dream Thief's secret home on a path of certain destruction. But that is exactly what he was doing. In the end he knew it was the only thing he could do.

Spence wondered if he were being drawn to his fate by the Dream Thief himself. It often appeared to be the case-he felt an impulse within him that did not come entirely from his own heart. Could the Dream Thief manipulate his thoughts?

And if so, how did he know when his thoughts were being manipulated? Which were his own and which belonged to the other?

He pondered these things, and he had pondered them often since leaving Calcutta. He was deep in thought when he felt a nudge at his elbow.

"You look lost, sahib." Adjani fell into step beside him, studying him.

"I was just thinking how foolish we are to be rushing like lemmings to our own destruction." He swiveled his head around and took in Adjani's reaction to these words and then turned again to his feet shuffling along. "You and Gita-you don't have to go. You could turn back. Gita should, at any rate; he has a family to think about."

"Yes, that's one way to look at it."

"Is there another way?"

"Of course. There is always another way."

"Let's hear it, then. It seems to me that we are three illequipped, insignificant, hardheaded do-gooders who haven't got the sense to get out of trouble when they have the chance. We're fools for thinking we can face up to the Dream Thief-whoever or whatever he is. It's sheer lunacy. How can we even dream we'd make a difference?"

"You know that the rise and fall of empires, the fates of whole nations, often hinge on the will of a single human being. One man of firm dedication can stand against an army.

"I don't know how this is going to end any more than you do. But I believe that the light that is in you and in me-in all of us -is greater than all the darkness in the universe. God is working in YOU, Spence; he has marked you for his own. And who can stand against God?"

Spence could think of no one offhand.

"Does that make you uncomfortable? To be chosen?" "Sure it does. Anyway, why me?"

"That is precisely the question you cannot ask." "I know. His ways are not our ways and all that." "Precisely."

Spence continued walking. "I'm not buying it. What difference does it make if I believe in him or not? What possible difference could it make in the outcome? You believe, and look where it's got you. You're staggering down some God-forsaken road on a death march, for heaven's sake. And for what?"

"To a believer no place is God-forsaken."

The Indian continued. "You don't fool me, Reston. This protest is the last gasp of a dying agnostic. You're running swiftly away from God-right into his arms.

"But to answer your question, I'd say it makes every difference in the world what you believe. Belief is the sense organ of faith, as your eyes are the sense organ of sight. With sight you see the world, with faith you see God. Belief has the power to shape reality."

"Imagined reality. Your personal perception of reality."

"No, reality itself, as it is-cold, hard, factual reality."

Spence's scowl deepened over his face. He was in no mood for listening to a lecture on the philosophy of reality from Professor Rajwandhi, but it appeared he had no vote. The tack Adjani chose next, however, surprised him.

"Look at that mountain peak out there."

"Which one? I see several."

"The center one with the white cap. Do you see it.

"Yes; I see it," Spence said flatly.

"Let's be scientific about it and call it the point of observation, the focal point. Now does it exist or doesn't it?" "Of course it exists."

"Are you sure? Prove it-better still, show me the focal point. Can you pick it up? Smell it? Taste it? Does it take up space or have any dimensions?"

No answer.

"No, of course not. A focal point is not a physical thing at all and yet it exists. We can prove that it exists because of the things we can do with it. We can use it to gauge distance and height. We can direct radio waves to it to accomplish any number of things. In other words, the focal point exists because it produces effects we can perceive but cannot account for in any other way.

"If you were to stand on that mountaintop right at the focal point, I could view you with a telescope. But you would feel, nothing at all while being observed. You would not in any way be able to detect the point of observation, and yet with it I could learn a great deal about you."

"Ah, but where does it go when I'm not thinking about it, or believing in it? It doesn't exist at all then."

"Precisely."

"Are you trying to tell me God is like that?"

"Not at all. I'm trying to tell you that belief shapes reality in unexpected ways. Your belief in the point of observation enables you to do things you couldn't do if you didn't believe in it. Get it?"

Spence scratched his head. His scowl was lifting, being replaced by a look of puzzlement. Adjani continued pushing home his point.

"Look at it like this: because you believe in the focal point you react to it in certain ways-it is real for you and it shapes the world as you see it. Believing in it even affects your behavior.

"If you looked through a telescope and saw a lion running toward you down the road, what would you do?"

"Climb a tree." Spence had become absorbed in Adjani's argument.

"Of course. You might do any number of things, but you would not say to yourself: 'the focal point does not exist, therefore the lion does not exist."' "Only a fool would react that way."

"Oh? Well, it might surprise you to know that is exactly how you've been reacting toward God."

"I don't see it that way."

"Explain it to me then, if you can." The remark drew no response from Spence. He glared ahead stubbornly. "Shall I explain it to you?"

"Go ahead-it's your nickel. You seem to have all the answers. "

Adjani ignored the jab and went on as if he had not heard it. How clear does it have to be for you? God is meeting you at every turn, Spence. Think about it. Back there in the camp you prayed for a little boy who died and he lived again. On Mars you Yourself should have died and yet you survived-against all odds You survived. And what is more, a creature from an alien civilization awoke from a sleep of five thousand years to tell you himself about God. And you insist you cannot see it?" Adjani threw back his head and gave a little laugh. "What must he do to get through to you? What will it take before you believe? Must these stones rise up and shout?" He waved a hand over the rough rocky path before them.

Although he posed as the antagonist in these discussions with Adjani, he actually agreed more than he admitted. Spence had reached the same conclusions the night the boy had been revived. It had affected him more deeply than he could express to another person. He had thought about very little else since that moment. He relived it constantly, still savoring the strangeness, the awful vividness of it.

Here was a reality that surpassed all previously known realities he had ever experienced. It was as if the source of all life had passed through him for one blinding instant. And in that moment he had seen himself and the world as he had never seen it before. The memory of it left him weak.

Perhaps that was why he was fighting so hard not to believe. Adjani was right-if he believed, it would change him. He was merely clinging to the last shreds of his tattered naturalistic world view. Giving it up was not easy, and not a thing done capriciously. Much of who he was, the person he knew himself to be, was wrapped up in that cold, concise, computer-generated view of the universe.

Adjani's question still rang in his ears. He turned to answer, not knowing what he would say, but feeling it in his heart. He opened his mouth to speak.

Suddenly, like a blast of hot wind which shrivels the tender leaves of grass, a wilting sensation passed through Spence. He tottered a few steps, threw down his bundle, and clutched his head. He turned and looked at Adjani, eyes wide and staring.

"Ari… Ari!" he cried and dropped unconscious to the ground.