I’ve been back to the Acme Travel Bureau. The first time the tall gray-haired man walked up to me and laid two five-dollar bills, a one, and seventeen cents in change before me. “You left this on the counter last time you were here,” he said gravely. Looking me squarely in the eyes, he added bleakly. “I don’t know why.” Then some customers came in, he turned to greet them, and there was nothing for me to do but leave.
Walk in as though it were the ordinary agency it seems—you can find it, somewhere, in any city you try! Ask a few ordinary questions—about a trip you’re planning, a vacation, anything you like. Then hint about The Folder a little, but don’t mention it directly. Give him time to size you up and offer it himself. And if he does, if you’re the type, if you can believe—then make up your mind and stick to it! Because you won’t ever get a second chance. I know, because I’ve tried. And tried. And tried.
<
* * * *
DREAMING IS A PRIVATE THING
by
Isaac Asimov
The more that we—as a civilization—surround ourselves with bulwarks against the harshness or discomfort of the natural world, the more we seem to crave the “canned” excitements of art and entertainment. With real physical dangers too few and far between to keep our glands stimulated, and real physical hungers too often satisfied too easily, we keep contriving more and surer ways to give ourselves the jolt in the arm that we must have, to stay aware of being alive.
Isaac Asimov, who has been writing science-fiction long enough to know whereof he speaks, here tells a story of the men who make the dreams . . .
“I wonder often what the vintners buy, One half so precious as the stuff they sell . . .”
* * * *
Jesse Weill looked up from his desk. His old spare body, his sharp high-bridge nose, deep-set shadowy eyes, and amazing shock of white hair had trademarked his appearance during the years that Dreams, Inc. had become world-famous.
He said, "Is the boy here already, Joe?"
Joe Dooley was short and heavyset. A cigar caressed his moist lower lip. He took it away for a moment and nodded. "His folks are with him. They're all scared."
"You're sure this is not a false alarm, Joe? I haven't got much time." He looked at his watch. "Government business at two."
"This is a sure thing, Mr. Weill." Dooley's face was a study in earnestness. His jowls quivered with persuasive intensity. "Like I told you, I picked him up playing some kind of basketball game in the schoolyard. You should've seen the kid. He stunk. When he had his hands on the ball, his own team ~ had to take it away, and fast, but just the same he had all the stance of a star player. Know what I mean? To me it was a giveaway. "
"Did you talk to him?"
"Well, sure. I stopped him at lunch. You know me." Dooley gestured expansively with his cigar and caught the severed ash with his other hand. " 'Kid,' I said--
"And he's dream material?"
"I said, 'Kid, I just came from Africa and-'
"All right." Weill held up the palm of his hand. "Your word I'll always take. How you do it I don't know, but when you say a boy is a potential dreamer, I'll gamble. Bring him in."
The youngster came in between his parents. Dooley pushed chairs forward, and Weill rose to shake hands. He smiled at the youngster in a way that turned the wrinkles of his face into benevolent creases.
"You're Tommy Slutsky?"
Tommy nodded wordlessly. He was about ten and a little small for that. His dark hair was plastered down unconvincingly, and his face was unrealistically clean.
Weill said, "You're a good boy?"
The boy's mother smiled at once and patted Tommy's head maternally (a gesture which did not soften the anxious expression on the youngster's face). She said, "He's always a very good boy."
Weill let this dubious statement pass. "Tell me, Tommy," he said, and held out a lollipop which was first hesitantly considered, then accepted. "Do you ever listen to dreamies?"
"Sometimes," said Tommy in an uncertain treble.
Mr. Slutsky cleared his throat. He was broad-shouldered and thick-fingered, the type of laboring man that, every once in a while, to the confusion of eugenics, sired a dreamer. "We rented one or two for the boy. Real old ones."
Weill nodded. He said, "Did you Re them, Tommy?"
"They were sort of silly."
"You think up better ones for yourself, do you?"
The grin that spread over the ten-year-old features had the effect of taking away some of the unreality of the slicked hair and washed face.
Weill went on, gently: "Would you like to make up a dream for me?"
Tommy was instantly embarrassed. "I guess not."
"It won't be hard. It's very easy . . . . Joe."
Dooley moved a screen out of the way and rolled forward a dream recorder.
The youngster looked Owlishly at it. Weill lifted the helmet and brought it close to the boy. "Do you know what this is?"
Tommy shrank away. "No."
"It's a thinker. That's what we call it because people think into it. You put it on your head and think anything you want."
"Then what happens?"
"Nothing at all. It feels nice."
"No," said Tommy, "I guess I'd rather not."
His mother bent hurriedly toward him. "It won't hurt, Tommy. you do what the man says." There was an unmistakable edge to her voice.
Tommy stiffened and looked as though he might cry, but he didn't. Weill put the thinker on him.
He did it gently and slowly and let it remain there for some thirty seconds before speaking again, to let the boy assure himself it would do no harm, to let him get used to the insinuating touch of the fibrils against the sutures of his skull (penetrating the skin so finely as to be almost insensible), and finally to let him get used to the faint hum of the alternating field vortices.
Then he said, "Now would you think for us?"
"About what?" Only the boy's nose and mouth showed.
"About anything you want. What's the best thing you would like to do when school is out?"
The boy thought a moment and said, with rising, inflection, "Go on a stratojet?"
"Why not? Sure thing. You go on a jet. It's taking off right now."
He gestured lightly to Dooley, who threw the freezer into circuit.
Weill kept the boy only five minutes and then let him and his mother be escorted from the office by Dooley. Tommy looked bewildered but undamaged by the ordeal.
Weill said to the father, "Now, Mr. Slutsky, if your boy does well on this test, we'll be glad to pay you five hundred dollars each year until he finishes high school. In that time all we'll ask is that he spend an hour a week some afternoon at our special school."
"Do I have to sign a paper?" Slutsky's voice was a bit hoarse. "Certainly. This is business, Mr. Slutsky."
"Well, I don't know. Dreamers are hard to come by, I hear."
"They are. They are. But your son, Mr. Slutsky, is not a dreamer yet. He might never be. Five hundred dollars a year is a gamble for us. It's not a gamble for you. When he's finished high school, it may turn out he's not a dreamer, yet you've lost nothing. You've gained maybe four thousand dollars altogether. If he is a dreamer, he'll make a nice living and you certainly haven't lost then."
"He'll need special training, won't he?"
"Oh, yes, most intensive. But we don't have to worry about that till after he's finished high school. Then, after two years with us, he'll be developed. Rely on me, Mr. Slutsky."
"Will you guarantee that special training?"
Weill, who had been shoving a paper across the desk at Slutsky and punching a pen wrong side to at him, put the pen down and chuckled. "Guarantee? No. How can we when we don't know for sure yet if he's a real talent? Still, the five hundred a year will stay yours."
Slutsky pondered and shook his head. "I tell you straight out, Mr. Weill-after your man arranged to have us come here, I called Luster-Think. They said they'll guarantee training."<
br />
Weill sighed. "Mr. Slutsky, I don't like to talk against a competitor. If they say they'll guarantee training, they'll do as they say, but they can't make a boy a dreamer if he hasn't got it in him, training or not. If they take a plain boy without the proper talent and put him through a development course, they'll ruin him. A dreamer he won't be, that I guarantee you. And a normal human being he won't be, either. Don't take the chance of doing it to your son.
"Now Dreams, Inc. will be perfectly honest with you. If he can be a dreamer, we'll make him one. If not, we'll give him back to you without having tampered with him and say, 'Let him learn a trade.' He'll be better and healthier that way. I tell you, Mr. Slutsky-I have sons and daughters and grandchildren so I know what I say-I would not allow a child of mine to be pushed into dreaming if he's not ready for it. Not for a million dollars."
Slutsky wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and reached for the pen. "What does this say?"
"This is just an option. We pay you a hundred dollars in cash right now. No strings attached. We'll study the boy's reverie. If we feel it's worth following up, we'll call you in again and make the five-hundred-dollars-a-year deal. Leave yourself in my hands, Mr. Slutsky, and don't worry. You won't be sorry."
Slutsky signed.
Weill passed the document through the file slot and handed an envelope to Slutsky.
Five minutes later, alone in the office, he placed the unfreezer over his own head and absorbed the boy's reverie intently. It was a typically childish daydream. First Person was at the controls of the plane, which looked like a compound of illustrations out of the filmed thrillers that still circulated among those who lacked the time, desire, or money for dream cylinders.
When he removed the unfreezer, he found Dooley looking at him.
"Well, Mr. Weill, what, do you think?" said Dooley with an eager and proprietary air.
"Could be, Joe. Could be. He has the overtones, and for a ten-year old boy without a scrap of training it's hopeful. When the plane went through a cloud, there was a distinct sensation of pillows. Also the smell of clean sheets, which was an amusing touch. We can go with him a ways, Joe."
"Good." Joe beamed happily at Weill's approval.
"But I tell you, Joe, what we really need is to catch them still sooner. And why not? Someday, Joe, every child will be tested at birth. A difference in the brain there positively must be, and it should be found. Then we could separate the dreamers at the very beginning."
"Hell, Mr. Weill," said Dooley, looking hurt. "What would happen to my job then?"
Weill laughed. "No cause to worry yet, Joe. It won't happen in our lifetimes. In mine, certainly not. We'll be depending on good talent scouts like you for many years. You just watch the playgrounds and the streets"-Weill's gnarled hand dropped to Dooley's shoulder with a gentle approving pressure-"and find us a few more Hillarys and Janows, and Luster-Think won't ever catch us . . . . Now get out. I want lunch, and then I'll be ready for my two o'clock appointment. The government, Joe, the government. " And he winked portentously.
Jesse Weill's two o'clock appointment was with a young man, apple-cheeked, spectacled, sandy-haired, and glowing with the intensity of a man with a mission. He presented his credentials across Weill's desk and revealed himself to be John J. Byrne, an agent of the Department of Arts and Sciences.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Byrne," said Weill. "In what way can I be of service?"
"Are we private here?" asked the agent. He had an unexpected baritone.
"Quite private."
"Then, if you don't mind, I'll ask you to absorb this." Byrne produced a small and battered cylinder and held it out between thumb and forefinger.
Weill took it, hefted it, turned it this way and that, and said with a denture-revealing smile, "Not the produce of Dreams, Inc., Mr. Byrne. "
"I didn't think it was," said the agent. "I'd still like you to absorb it. I'd set the automatic cutoff for about a minute, though."
"That's all that can be endured?" Weill pulled the receiver to his desk and placed the cylinder in the unfreeze compartment. He removed it, polished either end of the cylinder with his handkerchief ' and tried again. "It doesn't make good contact," he said. "An amateurish job. "
He placed the cushioned unfreeze helmet over his skull and adjusted the temple contacts, then set the automatic cutoff. He leaned back and clasped his hands over his chest and began absorbing. '
His fingers grew rigid and clutched at his jacket. After the cutoff had brought absorption to an end, he removed the unfreezer and looked faintly angry. "A raw piece," he said. "It's lucky I'm an old man so that such things no longer bother me."
Byrne said stiffly, "It's not the worst we've found. And the fad is increasing. "
Weill shrugged. "Pornographic dreamies. It's a logical development, I suppose."
The government man said, "Logical or not, it represents a deadly danger for the moral fiber of the nation."
"The moral fiber," said Weill, "can take a lot of beating. Erotica of one form or another has been circulated all through history."
"Not like this, sir. A direct mind-to-mind stimulation is much more effective than smoking-room stories or filthy pictures. Those must be filtered through the senses and lose some of their effect in that way."
Weill could scarcely argue that point. He said, "What would you have me do?"
"Can you suggest a possible source for this cylinder?"
"Mr. Byrne, I'm not a policeman."
"No, no, I'm not asking you to do our work for us. The Department is quite capable of conducting its own investigations. Can you help us, I mean, from your own specialized knowledge? You say your company did not put out that filth. Who did?"
"No reputable dream-distributor. I'm sure of that. It's too cheaply made. "
"That could have been done on purpose."
"And no professional dreamer originated it."
"Are you sure, Mr. Weill? Couldn't dreamers do this sort of thing for some small, illegitimate concern for money--or for fun?"
"They could, but not this particular one. No overtones. It's two-dimensional. Of course, a thing like this doesn't need overtones."
"What do you mean-overtones?"
Weill laughed gently. "You are not a dreamie fan?"
Byrne tried not to look virtuous and did not entirely succeed. "I prefer music."
"Well, that's all right, too," said Weill tolerantly, "but it makes it a little harder to explain overtones. Even people who absorb dreamies might not be able to explain if you asked them. Still, they'd know a dreamie was no good if the overtones were missing, even if they couldn't tell you why. Look, when an experienced dreamer goes into reverie, he doesn't think a story like in the old-fashioned television or book-films. It's a series of little visions. Each one has several meanings. If you studied them carefully, you'd find maybe five or six. While absorbing them in the ordinary way, you would never notice, but careful study shows it. Believe me, my psychological staff puts in long hours on just that point. All the overtones, the different meanings, blend together into a mass of guided emotion. Without them, everything would be flat, tasteless.
"Now, this morning I tested a young boy. A ten-year-old with possibilities. A cloud to him isn't just a cloud; it's a pillow, too. Having the sensations of both, it was more than either. Of course, the boy's very primitive. But when he's through with his schooling, he'll be trained and disciplined. He'll be subjected to all sorts of sensations.
He'll store up experience. He'll study and analyze classic dreamies of the past. He'll learn how to control and direct his thoughts, though mind you. I have always said that when a good dreamer improvises-
Weill halted abruptly, then proceeded in less impassioned tones, "I shouldn't get excited. All I'm trying to bring out now is that every professional dreamer has his own type of overtones which he can't mask. To an expert it's like signing his name on the dreamie. And I, Mr. Byrne, know all the signatures. Now that piece of dirt you brought me has no o
vertones at all. It was done by an ordinary person. A little talent, maybe, but like you and me, he can't think."
Byrne reddened a trifle. "Not everyone can't think, Mr. Weill, even,. if they don't make dreamies."
"Oh, tush," and Weill wagged his hand in the air. "Don't be angry with what an old man says. I don't mean think as in reason, I mean think as in dream. We all can dream after a fashion, just like we all can run. But can you and I run a mile in under four minutes? You and I can talk, but are we Daniel Websters? Now when I think of a steak, I think of the word. Maybe I have a quick picture of a brown steak on a platter. Maybe you have a better pictorialization of it, and you can see the crisp fat and the onions and the baked potato. I don't know. But a dreamer . . . he sees it and smells it and tastes it and everything about it, with the charcoal and the satisfied feeling in the stomach and the way the knife cuts through it, and a hundred other things all at once. Very sensual. Very sensual. You and I can't do it."
The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 1 - [Anthology] Page 30
