Dream thief

30

…

WHY WASN'T IT READY? I gave orders for everything to be ready on my arrival!" Hocking's pneumochair buzzed ominously across the floor. Ramm, Wermeyer, Tickler, and several others watched him silently, unwilling to upset him further.

"You failed-that is, we failed to anticipate your coming so soon. We were waiting for your signal. We had only a few hours' notice-there wasn't enough time," explained Wermeyer.

Hocking frowned. "My plans were, shall we say, compromised. It won't happen again! But nothing has changed. Get your men on it at once. I want the platform completed and the machine installed and ready for operation as soon as possible. Do you hear?"

"I already have men on it-they should be finished within the hour," said Wermeyer.

"Excellent! And the engines?"

"Ready for testing-also within the hour."

"That's better! See what you can do when you follow instructions and stop whining? Very well, we will begin projection as soon as the tanti is calibrated to our new orbit."

There was a slight commotion in the antechamber and one of Ramm's security men came white-faced into the room. He went straight to his chief and handed him a note. Ramm glanced at the note and his hand trembled.

Hocking's eyes narrowed. "What is it?"

"The prisoners-Reston and the others…" He looked to Wermeyer for support. "They've escaped."

"You idiots! You bumbling idiots!" Hocking exploded. "I'll have you-"

"We're on their trail now. They will be apprehended," Ramm was quick to add.

Hocking appeared ready to pursue the subject further, but then abruptly changed his mind. He looked at each of his crew in turn as if weighing their fates individually. The others watched and waited nervously, aware that some decision hung in the balance.

"It won't matter," Hocking said finally, so softly that some had trouble hearing. An awkward jerk of the head dismissed them. "You can go now." The floating chair showed its back.

There was the swish of an opening portal and the group filed out. Hocking turned and saw Ramm still standing there. "Well? What is it?"

"I, uh, nothing." His nerve failed him at the last second. "I was just wondering why Reston is so important to you."

Hocking's features tightened in a mocking sneer. "He is not important to me!"

"Then why do you want him so bad?" Ramm knew he was on shaky ground. "I mean, why don't you just let me kill him and be done with him once and for all?"

Hocking squirmed in his chair and grimaced. "Oh, I will kill him. Eventually." He went on, speaking more to himself than to Ramm. "But first he must be made to suffer as I have suffered. He must bow to me! He must acknowledge my superiority! Yes, yes. He must curse his weakness…" He glanced up and shot an angry look to the security chief. "You're dismissed."

Ramm dipped his head and left without another word. Time was running out. The prisoners had to be recaptured. He joined Wermeyer who was waiting for him in the next room.

"Well? What did you expect?"

"I don't know," Ramm said angrily. "What did he mean-'It won't matter'?"

Wermeyer shrugged. "Who can tell? Obviously it isn't important. He's got some scheme, that's all. I suggest you find the prisoners before anything happens."

"Getting worried, Wermeyer?"

"It's you I'm worried about. You know how he gets." He jerked his head toward the room they had just left and its occupant within.

"I'm beginning to wonder why I ever let you talk me into this." "You've got the director of this station locked in your cell and you're starting to second-guess your involvement?"

"Had. I had the director locked up."

"Just get him back and it'll be smooth sailing from here on, I promise you."

"It seems to me you promise too much." With that Ramm marched off. Wermeyer watched him go and then hurried away to check on the mounting of the tanti and the alignment of the newly installed engines; both projects were now in their final stages. Soon the station would be pushed from its orbit to travel wherever they willed. He could not help smiling to himself: everything was going according to plan. …

WEARING THE GREEN JUMPSUITS of housekeeperswhich Packer's cadets had filched from the laundry-Gotham's loyal defenders stood stiffly, glancing at their digitons and avoiding one another's eyes. "It's almost time," said Packer. "Want to go over it again?"

"No need," replied Zanderson. "We all know what to do." He looked at Spence. "Got the drug?"

"The encephamine is ready." He looked at Kalnikov and Packer and said, "I've made up the three vials. There isn't much, but dropped into the venting system it should be enough to sleep the entire station for two, maybe three minutes. It's potent stuff."

Kalnikov held up his arm. "I'm marking 16:43… ready…

Spence looked at his digiton. "Right." The affirmation was echoed around the circle.

"Well," Packer took a deep breath, "this is it. Let's go."

"God go with us," said Zanderson.

Spence looked at Adjani standing next to him. "Once more into the fray, eh?" Adjani smiled and nodded. He opened his mouth to speak and then hesitated. "What is it? Forget something?"

Adjani's eyes went hard; his features tensed. "Adjani!" Spence touched his shoulder and felt the muscles rigid. His eyes darted to the others-they were stopped in their tracks, too.

Then he heard it, the high-pitched, prickling sound-the sound of his nightmares. His mind squirmed as a curtain of darkness descended around him. "Hocking!" he gasped. "The tanti!" He felt his fists ball up and grind themselves into his eyesockets. He screamed, a painful pinched cry issued from his throat, and he slumped to the floor. …

A LEAF FELL, SWIRLING from a great height. It twisted and spun and rode eddies in the air as it slid down and down, spinning and spinning. Spence watched it with fascination and saw that the leaf was really a face-tissue-thin and nearly tranparent, with holes for eyes, nostrils, and mouth. It was, in fact, his face.

This thin skin had been torn from him and released, set free on the wind to float where it would. Spence watched it fly, hoping that someone would catch his face and return it to him. He saw a sea of hands spring up, reaching for the tumbling face, waving, straining to snag it.

And then it was in the hands of someone he could not see. The hands held the fluttering object gently and carried it toward him. He could only make out the outstretched hands holding the semitransparent tissue between them. The person with his face stopped in front of him and held it up to him. He took it and put it on.

Instantly he could see more clearly. Before him a beautiful young woman with golden hair and eyes of china blue smiled prettily and said, "That's much better." She held out her arms toward him and he stepped hesitantly toward her. As his arms closed about the girl, she faded from view and he was left standing alone once more.

"Ari!" he shouted. He heard the echo of her laughter receding from him and then silence. "Ari!" He started running toward the place where he last heard the sound. …

"I'vE GoT T0 FIND her," Spence whispered. "I've got to find Ari!" He struggled up groggily, like an exhausted diver spending the last of his strength stroking toward the surface. He could feel the pull of the tanti, like the pull of the strong undercurrent on a diver. Part of him longed to give in and let the current take him, to float peacefully into oblivion, into the gentle darkness. Give in, the current insinuated. Don't fight me anymore. Give in.

"No!" Spence shouted. His voice boomed at him from a distance. "I won't give in!"

Then, like the diver who feels his lungs must burst, but gives one last kick and feels his head break the surface as cold, clean air streams into his burning lungs, Spence with sheer strength of will forced his consciousness to return. Objects around him became clear and distinct once more. His vision sharpened and the awful dizziness left him. He was free.

He stood blinking, not daring to believe, but it was true: he was free. He had moved from the secret hiding place of the underground-that much he knew; he had some vague recollection of having run or walked through endless tunnels. As he looked around him now he saw that he was standing on one of the main axials near a junction tube. All around him lay the motionless bodies of Gotham's inhabitants felled by the first projection from the tanti. It was as if some monstrous carnage had taken place and the dead lay sprawled. Eyes staring, unblinking. Unseeing. Unknowing.

The sight sickened him and he turned to run along the axial, dodging the bodies in his path. Hocking is insane, Spence thought. He has turned his terrible machine on the station! But of course that is exactly what he would do-subdue the station first, bring it under his control. Why hadn't they thought of that? They were too busy worrying about what it would do on Earth to think about what the tanti would do to Gotham.

But Spence had survived the first pulse-as he had survived all the others. He wondered if he could resist the next one when it came; and come it would, soon. He had to find Hocking and somehow shut off the machine-before there was no one left to resist.

But he was the only one who could resist, the only one who stood between Hocking and his evil ambitions. That realization brought with it a keen vision. His senses sharpened; reality divided and rolled away on either hand. Darkness stood on one side and light on the other. He saw clearly the path before him. He squared his shoulders and put his feet on the path.

SPENCE ARRIVED A T HIS lab, rapped in his code and the door slid open. He bolted across the threshold. There on the floor before him lay the prostrate form of Kurt Millen. A quick look in the control booth found Tickler asleep in Spence's chair. "The rats always return to the nest," he muttered. He viewed the destruction of his office-files and disks were scattered all over the room. "I wonder what they were doing with all this?"

He reached out and grabbed Tickler's shoulder and gave it a rough shake. "Tickler! Can you hear me? Wake up! Tickler!" Spence frowned; Hocking didn't even spare his own, he thought, A moan passed the man's lips. Spence shook him again. "Where's your boss? Hocking-where is he?"

"Umph…" said Tickler.

"Come on, old weasel. Where is Hocking! Tell me and I'll leave you alone."

"Ahhh… I…" Tickler's head rocked forward on the console "Tickler, listen to me!" Spence bent close to the sleeping man's ear. "I am trying to find Hocking. You're the only one who knows where he is-that makes you very important."

"I… am… important…" he muttered.

Spence smiled darkly. "That's right, you are important. Now tell me where he is."

Tickler sighed dreamily. "No… one… knows…"

"If you tell me, I'll make sure everyone knows you were the one who told. You'll be famous."

"Famous… important," whispered Tickler.

"Yes, now where is he?" He jostled the man again. Hurry!

Before its too late! he cried inwardly. Outwardly, he forced him self to remain calm. "You can tell me, Tickler. It's important." "Hocking… " He started, but did not finish. "Yes! He's hiding. Where?"

"Hiding in the… cylinder…always in the cylinder."

The cylinder! Where's that? Spence gave his former assistant another jolt. "The cylinder, Tickler-I don't know where it is."

But Ticker did not respond. He was sinking deeper into his mindless sleep. Spence was losing him.

"Where's this cylinder? Tell me now or you'll never be famous!"

"'s in the stars… " said Tickler and he sank at once beyond Spence's reach.

"In the stars?" Spence wondered aloud. "I'm no better off than before."

Think, he told himself. Stay calm and think. Where can you see stars from the station? Any observation bubble, of course. Then that's not it. Where else? Outside, then.

Spence turned and ran back through the lab with the helpless, hopeless feeling that time was running out. …

ARI LAY IN A deathlike slumber on a low couch. The soft light pooling around her made her already pale features seem still more spectral. Her hair lay limp and dull in streaming disarray, falling over the side of the couch almost to the floor.

She did not move when a thin whirring sound, like the buzzing of a mechanical insect, came near her. She did not attend to the voice that addressed her.

"Ariadne," the breathless voice sighed. "Ariadne, my love."

A thin, skeletal hand reached out and touched her cheek, withdrawing from the unnatural chill of that soft flesh as from a prick of a needle.

Then the trembling hand stroked her white throat and lingered over the outline of her breast and came to rest upon her cold hands clasped over her stomach. A jerking anger traced the fine bones of her hand and wrist which showed through the ashen skin. ` Oh, Ariadne…" The voice was a quivering sigh that pinched off like a sob. "Soon I will awaken you and we will be together. My lovely, my Ariadne. Soon you will be mine."

The shaking hand moved to stroke her hair, brushing the temples slightly. "I am so sorry, my dear. So sorry, I did not want to harm you. But you will understand-in time you will understand. You will love me as I love you, my pretty. As I love you. In time you will see the vision that I see, you will share my dreams.

"It's all for you that I have done this. Yes, that's it. All for you. For us, my dear. I had to show them. They think they have spoiled my plans. But I will show them all what fools they are. My superior intelligence will shame them. And you will love me, my dear one. Oh yes, you will. You will, you will."

Hocking withdrew his hand and it fell back onto the tray of the pneumochair. His eyes glittered hard in his skull and he licked his thin lips with the tip of his tongue. He could not bring himself to tear his eyes away from her. It was as if her beauty held him in a trance; it was the flame that had drawn this grotesque creature to her.

In his perverted way, Hocking loved her. The nearness of the young woman during the long sessions in Ortu's palace had gone to his heart. Seeing her fearlessly face her task for the sake of her beloved stirred him strangely, and he began to imagine that it was for him that she sacrificed herself. He imagined also that she had grown to love him as he loved her, though he had never so much as breathed of his feelings for her.

At last he turned away and the chair whisked itself to another part of the room and another couch. He paused here, too, and his glance sharpened once more to his normal arrogance. He began speaking in low, menacing tones.

"You should not have come, alien. There is nothing but death for you. I will destroy you in the end. I must. You cannot be allowed to live on here, and where we are going there is no place for you. But for a little while you are still valuable to me."

The great elongated form lay still.

Hocking turned away from the inert Martian and went back to gazing at his bank of vidscreens which showed various scenes of Gotham's citizenry sleeping between the pulses of the tanti projections. "This, my children, is but a taste. Soon you will be completely in my power." He looked at the chronometer, counting down the time to the next pulse. "Very soon."