Джон Макдональд - Wine of the Dreamers [= Planet of the Dreamers]

Bard Lane dropped heavily into a chair and held his hand across his eyes. No one spoke. When at last he looked up, his expression was bleak. He stared at Jerry. “What is this test you have to say to me?”

Speaking slowly, pausing at times, Raul Kinson told of the Watchers, the Leaders, the Migrations, the dream machines, and of the perversion, over fifty centuries, of what had once been a logical plan. He told of the one Law which governed all of those who dreamed.

Bess sat on the edge of the desk, a bored look on her face.

Bard looked down at the knuckles of his clenched fist. “And so,” he said softly, “if we can believe you, you give us the answer to why, with most of the techniques under control, every attempt to conquer deep space has been a miserable failure.”

There was no answer. He looked up. Jerry Delane stood with an odd expression on his face. “What am I doing in here? How did I get in here?”

Bess slid quickly off the desk. “Did you call me, Dr. Inly?” she asked in a shrill, frightened voice.

Sharan forced a smile. “The conference is over, kids. You can go. You will stay, Bard?”

Jerry and Bess left the office.

“Have we gone mad?” Bard asked.

“There is no such thing as shared delusion, mutual fantasy, Bard,” Sharan said in a tired voice. “And either you are still in the ward and all this is taking place in your mind — or else I have gone off completely and I only imagine you are here. Or, what seems the most difficult of all — it is all true.” She stood up. “Dammit, Bard! If I close my mind to this thing, it means that my mind is too little and too petty to encompass it. But try — just try — to swallow this tale of alien worlds, Leaders, Migrations. No, it won’t wash. I have a better idea.”

“Which I will be delighted to hear.”

“Sabotage. A new and very clever variety. Some of our friends on the other side of this world have managed to develop hypnotic technique to a new level of efficiency. Maybe they use some form of mechanical amplification. They’re trying to discredit us if they can’t drive us mad. That has to be it.”

Lane frowned. “If their technique is that good, why do it the hard way? Why not just take over Adamson and Bill Kornal and a few other key men and have them spend a few hours damaging the Beatty One?”

“You forget. They already took over Kornal. It gave them a few months of grace. Now they’re experimenting. Maybe they will try to talk us into leaving here and going to another country. You can’t tell what they have in mind. Bard, the one who calls himself Raul Kinson warned me that he was going to enter my mind. And then he did. It was... degrading and horrible. We’ve got to get in touch with our own people who might know something about this. Maybe some of the ESP men. And then there’s Lurdorff. He’s done some amazing things with hypnosis. Hemorrhage control. That sort of thing. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m trying to picture just how you’d state the problem without ending up on the receiving end of some fancy shock therapy, Sharan.”

She sat down slowly. “You’re right,” she said. “There’s no way we can warn them. No way in the world.”

Leesa, walking down one of the lower levels, saw Jord Orlan step off the moving ramp, glance at her and look quickly away. She lengthened her stride to catch him.

“I have something to tell you,” she said.

He looked nervously down the corridor.

“It’s all right. Raul has gone up to the unused levels.”

“Come then,” he said. He led the way to his quarters, walked in ahead of her. When he turned around he saw that she was already seated. He frowned. The respectful ones waited to be asked.

“I have been expecting a report, Leesa Kinson.”

“Raul trusts me. Perhaps, too much. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

“Remember, this is for his own good.”

“I’ve had to pretend to be very contrite for all the damage I’ve caused in the dream worlds to all those precious little people he thinks are actually alive.”

Jord Orlan forgot his annoyance with her. “Very good, child! And have you shared his dreams?”

“Yes. He explained how he found a space ship project by searching the mind of a certain colonel in Washington. He told me how to find the project. We met there, in host bodies. Raul seems very proud of the people who work there. He wants to protect the project against... us. Not long ago the project was damaged by one of us who came across it, probably by accident, and forced a technician to smash delicate equipment. Raul does not want that to happen again.”

“How does he hope to prevent it?”

“He has told two of them about the Watchers, and he has managed to prove to them that we exist.”

Jord Orlan gasped. “That is a paradox! To convince someone who does not exist of existence on the only true plane. Many of us have amused ourselves trying to tell the dream people about the Watchers. They invariably go mad.”

“These two did not. Possibly because the woman is an expert on madness and the man is... strong.”

He stared at her. “Do not fall into the trap in which your brother finds himself. When you spoke of the man you looked as though you might believe him to be real. He is merely a figment of the dream machine. That you know.”

“Then isn’t it pointless, Jord Orlan, to destroy what they build?”

“It is not pointless because it is the Law. You are absurd to argue. Come now. Tell me about the location. I shall organize a group. We will smash the project completely.”

“No,” she said, smiling. “That would spoil my game. I am beginning to find it amusing. Leesa reserves that pleasure for herself, thank you.”

“I can make that an order.”

“And I shall disobey it and you can thrust me out of this world and perhaps never find the project.”

He thought for a few moments. “It would be better were we to do it, a group of us. Then we should dream-kill the dream creatures with the greatest skills so as to lessen the danger of a new project for many years.”

“No!” she said sharply. Then her eyes widened with surprise at the force of her own objection. She raised her fingertips to her lips.

“Now I understand,” Jord Orlan said comfortably. “You find one of the dream creatures amusing, and you do not wish your sport to be denied you. Very well, then, but make certain that the destruction is complete. Report back to me.”

As she reached the doorway he spoke to her again. She turned and waited. He said, “Within the next few days, my dear, Ryd Talleth will seek you out. I have ordered him to. He is the one most inclined to favor you — but he will need encouragement.”

“He is a weak fool,” she said hotly. “Do you not remember your promise, Jord Orlan? If I did as you asked, you would not force me into any such—”

“No one is forcing you. It is merely a suggestion,” he said.

She walked away without answering him. She was restless. She walked down to the corridor lined with the small rooms for games. She stood in the doorway of one of them. Three women, so young that their heads still bore the thinning shadow of their dusty hair, pursued a squat and agile old man who dodged with cat-quick reflexes. They shrieked with laughter. He wore a wide grin. She saw his game. He favored one and it was his purpose to allow her to make the capture, even though the others were quicker. At last she caught him, her hands fast on the shoulder piece of the toga. The others were disconsolate. As they filed out of the room, leaving the two alone, Leesa turned away also. Once again she touched her lips and she thought of a man’s heavy hands, square and bronzed against the whiteness of a hospital bed.