Dream thief

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  2

  …

  THE UNBROKEN HORIZON OF gently rolling hills stretched out as far as Spence could see. The same horizon, the same hills as in previous dreams. In the distance he saw people moving among the hills with heavy burdens. Closer, he recognized these as the peasants who labored in rags to rid the arid hills of stones, which they tumbled into their rough twig baskets with their skinny hands. All was familiar, painfully so, to Spence who had lived the dream often.

  He watched as the barefoot peasants shifted the weight of the baskets upon their bony shoulders and shuffled single file along the road. Others around him still strained to lift the stones, white as mushrooms and big as loaves of bread, from the soil. He knew he was powerless to help them in any way; his words and actions were ignored. He was invisible to them.

  Spence again sat down, brooding over his ineffectiveness. Again the air was deathly silent; the peasants were gone. He felt the earth tremble at his feet as a round, white stone surfaced from beneath the ground. He looked around him and other stones were erupting from the soil like miniature volcanoes.

  When he stood he found himself once again atop the high bank of a river. The dark, muddy water swirled in rolling eddies below. The last peasant dumped his basket into the water and Spence heard a voice call his name. He turned and saw a dozen huge, black birds wheeling in the air. He followed them and realized he was standing on an immense plain which stretched limitless into the distance. Rising in front of him on that flat, grass-covered plain stood an ancient, crumbling castle.

  He lifted his foot, the landscape blurred, and then he stood within the courtyard of the castle before a scarred wooden door which he tried and found open. An empty marble corridor of stairs spiraled down away from him. He followed it. Deeper it wound, eventually arriving at the entrance to a small chamber, dimly lit.

  Spence rubbed his eyes and stepped forward into the room. The light of the room seemed to emanate from a single source-an incredibly large egg floating in the center of the chamber. He to watched, horrified, as the egg began bobbing slightly and rose up higher into the air. As it rose it revolved and he then saw what he feared-the egg was the back of Hocking's chair. But it was upside down. As it slowly revolved, he saw Hocking sitting serenely in his chair, laughing. The chair floated closer. Hocking threw him a toothy grimace and became a leering, malevolent death's-head.

  Spence turned and fled; the egg-chair-death's-head pursued him. He raced for the door at the end of the corridor and burst through to discover an inky black night scattered with a thousand stars. Over his shoulder Earth, a serene blue globe, rose in the sky as he stumbled bleeding across a rocky, alien landscape… …

  SPENCE WATCHED THE SHUTTLE pull away from the huge arcing flank of the space station. He stood on a small observation platform overlooking the staging area watching the routine arrival of supplies and the departure of personnel going down, or rather back, to Earth on furlough. He wished he was going with them.

  He had never felt more like giving up than he did right now. His life had settled into a dull aching throb between depression and loneliness. He did not know which was worse: the black haze through which he seemed to view life around him, or the sharp pangs which arrowed through his chest whenever he immersed himself in the stream of people moving along the trafficways and realized that he did not really know a single other soul.

  But underlying both of these unpleasant realities was, he knew, the very thing which he dreaded most: the dreams.

  Since that afternoon in Central Park nearly two weeks before, he had begun to feel those invisible eyes on him every waking moment. He fancied they watched him while he slept. He felt his sanity slowly slipping away.

  He gazed up through the giant observation bubble into the velvet black void of space burning with a billion pinpoint flares of nameless stars. He was gazing at the rim of the Milky Way but remained oblivious to the sight. "What am I going to do?" he whispered aloud to himself.

  He turned away as the shuttle's white bulk dropped slowly from view below him. There was a whir as the docking net was withdrawn and a faint whispered hiss as the inner airlocks equalized. Spence yawned and thought again, for the billionth time,how tired he was. He had not closed his eyes to speak of in the last three days-quick catnaps, a few minutes here and there was all.

  He had been avoiding sleep like a youngster avoids the dentist when the tooth throbs and pain numbs the jaw. He hoped that by some miracle the pain, the dreams, would just go away. At the same time, he knew that hope was futile.

  He would have to have some real sleep soon if he was to remain even partially upright and coherent. He had the odd apprehension that he was turning into a zombie, one of those pathetic creatures of myth destined to roam the twilight regions neither completely dead nor fully alive. No thoughts, no feelings. Just an ambulatory carcass directed by some demon will beyond itself.

  But the idea of sleep had become repugnant to him. Becoming a zombie was less frightening than the thought of the nightmare which waited for him to drift into blissful peace before unfolding him in its awful insanity.

  Spence shook his head to clear it; he was beginning to ramble. He looked around and realized that his unattended steps had brought him to Broadway.

  Turning to the left he started to make his way back to the BioPsych section and the sleep lab, to his own quarters-there again to wrestle with the question, "to sleep, or not to sleep"but something caught his eye and he stopped and looked again. All he saw was a brightly illuminated sign, the same as any other which identified the trafficways of Gotham. Spence stood staring at the sign for several seconds before he realized what had arrested his flagging attention. The words "OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR" and the red arrow pointing the opposite way seemed to hold a special fascination for him in his befuddled state.

  Without thinking about it, or making a decision at all, he discovered his feet moving him mechanically along toward the director's office. And, without surprise, he knew why he was going there. Perhaps subconsciously he had intended to request a psych leave for some time. Now, in his sleep-deprived condition his body was taking him where he had wanted to go all along but had not dared, for lack of nerve.

  Spence moved blindly along, somehow managing to avoid the others hurrying to and fro along the trafficway. Twice he caught strange looks from passersby, but their glances of questioning concern failed to register. It was as if he had withdrawn to an inner mental cell and only peered out curiously from behind the bars. The reactions of others meant nothing to him.

  After much turning, and several level changes-Spence was oblivious to it all-he arrived at AdSec. As he stood contemplating the partition which separated him from the receptionist inside he came to himself.

  "I can't go in there like this," he muttered. He spun around, spied a convenience station, and took himself inside. He peered into the mirror as he leaned over the duralum basin and marveled at the sight he presented. Red-rimmed eyes burned out of a pallid, expressionless face; unwashed hair started from his head as if afright; deep lines drew a pliant mouth into a frowning scowl.

  It was the very visual representation of how he felt: the outer man imitating the inner.

  Spence shook his head in disbelief and filled the basin with cold water. He let the water run until it threatened to overflow and then plunged his hands in, scooped up a double handful and splashed it on his face.

  The sting of the water cleared his senses somewhat and he felt better at once. He repeated the procedure several times and then made an attempt to flatten his hair. He dried his hands at a nearby blower and then stepped from the vestibule once more into the trafficway.

  With some hesitation he pushed the access plate and the translucent partition slid open slightly. He stepped woodenly in and forced a grin at the tight-lipped receptionist who greeted him with the flash of a professional smile and the standard, "Good afternoon. Whom do you wish to see, please?"

  "I'm-I've come to see the director," said Spenc
e as he looked around for his office among the several which opened off of the central reception area. He saw it and started toward it.

  "I'm sorry," called the receptionist, "do you have an appointment?"

  "Yes," Spence lied, and kept on going. He approached the door, pushed the access plate, and walked in.

  He was not expecting anything in particular, but the room which opened before him startled him with its size and regal appointments. Compared to his own crabbed cube of a room, and all the other totally space-efficient quarters, chambers, and labs he had been in on the station, this one was palatial in its utter disregard for constraint.

  He could not help gawking as he stared at the beautiful expanse of open space which met his eyes. The room was a huge octagonal chamber with a high curving dome above a broad area, part of which was given to a sort of loft which was reached by a spiraled rank of broad steps. The princely spaciousness of the quarters was further enhanced by a huge observation bubble which formed part of a convex wall over the loft. The effect to an observer like Spence was one of entering a great hall with a window opening onto the universe beyond.

  His feet were sunk into several centimeters of thick, buff-colored carpet. Green plants of several types and miniature flowering trees splashed color against pale, slate-gray walls and tawny furnishings. Notably absent was any hint of aluminum or other metallic surfaces. It was an office such as one would find in one of the great bastions of corporate power back on Earth, but rarely on a space station. Rank, thought Spence, did indeed have its privileges.

  "Yes?" said a voice close by. Spence jerked around quickly, immediately embarrassed.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't see you when I came in."

  The bright, china blue eyes which met his sparkled. "That's all right. I'm often overlooked."

  "No, I didn't mean…" He broke off. The young lady, several years his junior, was laughing at him. He colored at that, feeling ridiculous and completely out of place. He did not know what to say and for a few moments stared unabashedly at the girl sitting casually at a low desk just inside the entrance to the mammoth office.

  She wore a jumpsuit like everyone else on GM, but hers was a light powder-blue-definitely not regulation. Her long blonde hair hung down in loose ringlets, swept back from her temples and secured somehow at the back of her head to fall in curls along her slender, well-formed neck.

  "Was there something?" she asked. The smile this time was accompanied by just the barest hint of a flutter of her long, dark lashes.

  "Oh, yes." Spence brought himself forcibly back to his mission. "I have come to see the director."

  "Why, may I ask?"

  Spence started. How impertinent. "I'd rather discuss that with the director himself, thank you," he said stuffily, and hoped it had put her back in her proper place. The nerve.

  "Certainly," she smiled again. "Only if I knew what it was about it might help you to get in to see him sooner, that's all."

  "I had hoped to be able to see him at once."

  "I'm afraid not."

  "But it's very important. I must see him today. I won't take but a few minutes of his time. Couldn't you just tell him it's private and urgent?"

  "No."

  Again that impertinence. Spence, in his exhaustion, felt a hot current of anger rising to his head. He willed himself to remain calm. "May I wait?" he asked, nodding to a chair set in among a grove of miniature palms.

  "If you like," said the girl coolly, and as Spence moved to take his seat she added, "Only it will most likely be a rather long wait. He…"

  "I don't mind," interrupted Spence firmly. He plopped himself down in the soft fabric cushions of the chair with a demonstration of defiant resolve.

  The young woman went back to her work without another glance at him. For a while he ignored her and busied himself with studying the dimensions of the director's official lair. Tiring of that he moved his attention by degrees to the woman at the desk opposite him. She had begun entering data into a terminal at the side of her desk. He marveled at her quickness and dexterity. That was obviously why she had been hired for the job of assistant to the director, observed Spence; it was not for her tact.

  As he watched, he formed several other opinions about her. She was, he determined, of the giddy sort, given to suppressed giggles and flouncy sentiments. Undoubtedly frivolous. Very likely not a brain in her head. At the barest hint of anything intellectual she would probably flutter her eyelashes and simper, "I'm afraid that's too deep for little of me."

  She was pretty, there was no denying that. But, Spence told himself, it was a superficial beauty which had no lasting quality. For someone unparticular, she would make a suitable mate. But for one like himself she would never do. Never in a billion chronemes.

  It did not occur to Spence that he had just painted her with exactly the same unflattering strokes he painted nearly every other woman. That, for him, was easier than just admitting that he had no time for women, that romance would interfere with his research and career, that he was afraid of women because he did not trust himself to be faithful to both an intimate relationship with another human being and to his work.

  He had a certain right to be afraid; he had seen too many gifted men burdened by cares for a wife and family succumb to second-rate research centers and teaching jobs. The young Dr. Reston intended to fly as high as he could, and no woman was going to hold him down.

  The young lady squirmed under his unrelenting gaze. She tilted her head and peered back at him. Their eyes met and Spence looked quickly away. But soon he was staring at her again. She smiled and then laughed as she turned to confront him.

  "Is this your way of getting a girl's attention?"

  "Excuse me?" He was unprepared.

  "Staring. Is there something you want?"

  "Was I staring? I'm sorry. I didn't mean… Look, I only want to see the director. When will he be available?"

  The girl glanced at her watch and said, "Oh, next week some time. Maybe Thursday."

  "What?" Spence leaped from his seat and bounded over to the desk. "I thought you said I could wait!"

  "You may wait as long as you like, but he won't be back until next Thursday."

  "You said…" Spence sputtered. His hands clenched themselves in angry fists at his side.

  "I said it would likely be a rather long wait. You interrupted me before I could finish."

  "Is this the way you treat everyone on important business?" She flashed him a defiant smirk. "No, only those who waltz in demanding to see the director without an appointment."

  She had him; he was defeated and disgraced. It was true, he had behaved like an idiot. A wave of cool shame instantly quenched the anger just as the flames threatened to touch off his temper.

  The young secretary smiled at him again and he did not feel so bad. "So, we're even," she said. "Now, would you like to start again at the beginning?"

  Spence only nodded.

  "Fine. Is this personal business or official?" "Well, personal."

  "See? That wasn't hard. I'll put you down for an appointment Friday morning first thing. His assistant will call you."

  "You mean you're not his assistant? I thought-"

  "You thought I was, I know. No, I'm only filling in while they are away. Mr. Wermeyer is his assistant."

  Now Spence felt doubly the fool. He wished only to be allowed to melt into the carpet and slink away. "Thank you," he muttered and backed away slowly. The partition slid closed, terminating the episode in the director's office. He sighed and made his way back to his quarters more hopelessly tired than ever.

  3

  … THE OLD HEAD CAME up slowly. Lizard-like. The large oval yellow eyes gazed outward from under half-closed lids. Yellowed skin, the color and texture of ancient parchment, stretched tautly over a smooth, flat skull and hung in folds around the sagging neck. Not a hair remained in the scalp; not a whisker, not an eyelash.

  A thin, slightly rounded band stretched across the smooth brow. This circle
t pulsed with a purplish light of its own, throbbing as waves of energy flashed and dimmed.

  Hocking could see him as if wreathed in smoke-clearly in the center of his field of vision, but shimmering and indistinct on the periphery. The face regarded him with a steady glare, the expression beyond contempt or malice though traces of both were there, beyond weariness or simple age. Cold. Reptilian. It was an expression utterly alien to any assignable human emotion.

  In a lesser being the face and its mysterious scowl would have created at least a sense of dread, if not outright fear, but Hocking was used to it.

  "Ortu." He said the name softly, distinctly. "We are ready to proceed with the final experiment. I have found a subject especially receptive to the stimulus." Hocking licked his lips and waited for a reply.

  For a moment he doubted whether the image before him had heard, but he knew it had. The reply would come in time.

  "Proceed, then, as I have instructed." The words were spoken evenly, but with an unusual coloring-the faintest suggestion of a foreign accent, but indecipherable.

  "I thought you would be pleased, Ortu. We can begin at last." Hocking's upper lip twitched enthusiastically. "At long last…"

  "Pleased? For what reason should I be pleased? Oh, there are so many." There was no mistaking the venom in the voice. "Pleased that it has taken so long? That even my inexhaustible patience has been tried time and time again to no result? That my plans should rest on the feeble efforts of a creature too stupid to comprehend the smallest fraction of the work?" The circlet on his forehead flashed brightly.

  Hocking endured the sarcasm bravely. "I have been particularly careful in my choice of a subject this time. He is a sleep scientist named Reston, and he's quite malleable. We will not be disappointed again, I assure you."

  "Very well, begin at once." Ortu closed his eyes and his ancient head sank once more.

  "It shall be done." Hocking, too, closed his eyes and when he opened them again the glimmering image had vanished. He sat in his chair in the center of his darkened quarters. The whisper of a smile flitted across his skeletal features. Now, at last, all was ready. The final test could begin. …