Steven Harper - Dreamer

Then came the screams. A dozen, perhaps a hundred voices, all in pain, all wailing like a cold wind. It came from every direction, tearing at skin and nerves. Padric had to leave the Dream, and quickly, but the screams made it hard to concentrate. A column pressed cold against Padric’s side. He leaned against it, trying to take in its solidity and ignore the chuckling that oozed steadily toward him. The horrible wail keened louder. Suddenly Padric was back in the camps, hearing the screams of the other inmates, their cries for help and mercy. He flattened his ears again and yowled in sympathy.

The column shifted against Padric’s fur. He jumped away with a hiss and spun to face it. The white stone bulged with odd shapes. Distorted human forms moved within the rock, stretching and twisting in impossible directions. Eyes bulged and contracted, skin and muscle contorted. An arm broke free with a wet sound and reached for him. Padric scrambled backward. Cold slime washed over his hind feet, oozed between his toes. Padric tried to leap free, but the blackness held him fast. Still chuckling, it crawled up his haunches. A tendril snapped upward and wrapped around his shoulders like an icy snake.

Padric shut his eyes. He was not in danger. He was not going to die. He was Padric Sufur, and he was a master in the Dream. The ooze climbed, engulfing his front legs. Padric forced himself to shut out the horrible keening, the cold slime crawling up his body. It reached his chest and shoulders. Padric inhaled deeply, ignoring the rotten smell and the fact that he couldn’t feel his feet. He was calm. He was in control.

The icy ooze rushed over his head. Padric automatically tried to inhale and choked. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t Padric Sufur’s eyes snapped open and he sat up with a gasp. He flailed wildly about his bed for a moment before realizing that the slime was gone, the wailing silent. He had successfully left the Dream.

Padric wrapped long, thin arms around his chest, acclimating himself to his real shape. It was bony and inefficient. KellReech had a lower center of gravity and more dextrous fingers. Chipk had many legs and eyes and soft brown fur. Padric’s body was mostly hairless and his hands were awkward. His face was lean, unlined, and hawk-like, with a long nose and thin lips. His body was equally lean, with long limbs and hands. Out of the Dream, Padric had allowed a few wrinkles to creep across his face to remind him that, despite appearances, eighty-eight wasn’t young even for a human.

The bedroom had already raised the temperature to the toasty warmth he preferred upon awakening from the Dream, but a chill suffused his bones. Padric’s room was large and spare, furnished with only a bed, endtable, and wardrobe. Like each room in the rest of his home, this one was a clear dome with, in Padric’s considered opinion, the most beautiful view in the universe.

The estate occupied most of an asteroid, and it consisted of a series of above-ground half-bubbles blown from the rock and sand of the asteroid itself and reinforced with clear polymers. Thick carpets went right up to the edge of the dome, where the floor became the pocked surface of the asteroid. If Padric dimmed the lights, making the dome effectively invisible, it looked as if the room were standing in the middle of a vast desert beneath a soft black sky and steady, shining stars. And the gas giant, of course.

The ringed gas giant, which Padric had named Gem, dominated the heavens, and her rainbow surface was often chased by raging storms large enough to engulf entire planets. Padric’s asteroid currently skated the giant’s icy ring, making it look as if a glittering, blue-white road stretched past the horizon. An entire team of what Padric called his “gardeners” did nothing but scan the asteroid’s projected orbit for ring debris and remove anything that might punch a hole in, or even scratch, the domes. It was terribly expensive, especially when the asteroid’s orbit carried it through the ring itself, but the view was well worth it.

Padric sat tailor-fashion on his bed and drummed his fingers thoughtfully on one thigh. His heart had slowed, but a certain tension remained in his gut. The Dream was becoming more and more dangerous. He would have to arrange a meeting with Dr. Say, and quickly.

The bedroom door opened and a large spider-like being scuttled in. A silver tray was balanced expertly on its back, and the delicious smells of sweet rolls and coffee filled the dome. Padric shivered with Dream cold again and all but snatched the coffee mug off the tray. He sipped the bitter warmth gratefully. The spider, meanwhile, set the tray on the nightstand, then stepped back and waved its forward legs and antennae. Padric, adept at the sign language, didn’t need to activate the translator.

“Will you require anything more, sir?” Chipk, the spider, was asking. He was a Kepaar whose had lost status on his homeworld. Padric had hired him, though Chipk had the unnerving habit of referring to it as “buying my soul.”

“The newest reports about the Dream, please,” Padric replied in his own language. He couldn’t speak Kepaarin-not without multi-jointed legs-but Chipk knew Padric’s language perfectly well. It was an equitable arrangement.

“The news has already been downloaded into the room, sir,” Chipk said, and withdrew.

Padric sipped from the mug again. Although coffee was originally a human discovery, it had taken the ministrations of more evolved races to produce the best results, and Padric’s staff always ordered beans that had never touched human hands or soil.

“Meth-pa,” he said, “news. Text format.”

A holographic veiwscreen obediently appeared in front of him and words scrolled down it. There were several stories about Silent who had been caught in strange accidents or fought terrible monsters. Per Grill, a Silent from Bell Star Station, had nearly been swallowed by a giant worm. A pair of Silent involved in a delicate stock market transaction had been hit by a tornado. They described the whirlwind as “screaming at us.”

Nileeja Vo was dead.

Padric gasped and hurriedly re-read the article. Nileeja Vo was-had been-a field recruiter for Dreamers, Inc. Her husbands had found her dead on her couch, a look of terror on her face. According to the newspaper, she had finished a mail transfer within the Dream, and the other Silent, the one receiving the information, had left the Dream just fine. Moments later, something had killed her Dream form, and her body had quickly followed.

Padric put a bony hand over his mouth as he read. A small bit of sorrow clotted his throat. He had met Nileeja Vo at the same time he had met KellReech. Padric remembered squatting in the filthy camp barrack when a strange being entered, flanked by two guards. The being was short and scaly, with long graceful fingers. It moved through the room, touching each inmate and moving on without speaking. Padric watched in wary fascination until the creature came to him. When its fingers brushed his bare shoulder, a jolt flashed down his spine.

“This one,” the being said.

The guards took Padric by the upper arms and full-blown terror burst upon him. He struggled and fought until one of the guards cracked him across the head with a baton. The world went dark.

When he awoke with an ache in his head and nausea in his stomach, the short creature was standing next to him. It occurred to Padric that he was lying on a bed, a soft one. The creature pressed something against his arm. There was a soft thump, and the headache and nausea vanished.

“Who are you?” Padric asked.

The creature smiled with its wide mouth. “My name is KellReech,” it said.

The door opened, and another being walked in. This one was over two meters tall and willowy with enormous black eyes, a shock of wild white hair, and rough brown skin. It carried a food tray. An appetizing smell filled the room and Padric’s mouth watered. He sat up and saw that he was dressed in clean pajamas. His body also felt clean, though he hadn’t bathed in months. The willowy creature set the tray in Padric’s lap. He instantly shoveled food into his mouth, not even stopping to examine or taste it.