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

The gnawing of hunger at last took him away from the picture which he later found was called a “window.” He went all the way back down to the deep familiar levels. He spoke to no one of what he had seen. He walked in a daze, feeling shrunken and small against the enormities of what lay outside the known world. He ate and slept and bathed and walked alone, seeking always the chance to slip away, to return to his window that looked out on another world which dwarfed his own.

Once, full of the importance of new knowledge, he had tried to tell one of the old ones about what he had seen. Wrath exploded and Raul Kinson picked himself up off the floor, with bleeding mouth, determined to speak no more.

With Leesa, of course, it was a different thing. As his sister, she shared, to some extent, that wry biological joke which had given him a deep chest, broad shoulders, strong column of neck, muscle-bulge of thigh and calf in a world where physical strength was useless.

He remembered that he had been twelve and she was ten when he took her up to the window. At ten she was taller and stronger than the other girl children of the same age. Like Raul, her hair was blue-black and abundant. It set them apart in a world where hair was thin, dry and brown, lasting usually until the age of twenty, seldom beyond.

They had talked, and he knew that Leesa shared his vague feeling of disquiet, his aimless discontent — but her releases took a different form. Whereas he strove constantly to learn more, to understand more, she made a fetish of wildness and childish abandon.

He was proud of the way she refused to show her fear. They stood at the window. He said, proud of his new words, “That is ‘outside.’ All of our world and all the levels are inside of what is called a ‘building.’ It is cold out there. That red round light is a sun. It moves across the ceiling, but never goes completely out of sight. I have watched it. It travels in a circle.”

Leesa looked at it calmly enough. “It is better inside.”

“Of course. But it is a good thing to know — that there is an outside.”

“Is it? Why is it good just to know things? I would say it is good to dance and sing and be warm — to take the long baths and find the foods that taste best.”

“You won’t tell anyone about this?”

“And be punished? I am not that stupid, Raul.”

“Come, then. And I will show you other things.”

He took her down several levels to a series of small rooms. He took her to one room where ten chairs faced the end of the room. He made her sit in one while he went to the machine which had taken him so many months to understand. He had broken four of them before he at last found the purpose.

Leesa gasped as the light dimmed and the pictures appeared, by magic, on the wall at the end of the room, the end that they faced.

Raul said quietly, “I believe it was intended that all children should be brought to these rooms to watch the images. But somehow, a long time ago, it was given up. Those marks under each picture mean nothing to you, Leesa. But I have learned that they are writing. Each thing has a word, as you know. But those marks can mean the word. With those marks, if you could read, I could tell you something without talking.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Her tone was full of wonder.

“I could leave a message for you. I can read the writing under the pictures. There is an uncountable number of these spools to put in the machines. Each room holds ones more complicated than in the previous room. I think that this room was for the very small children, because the words are simple.”

“You are clever, Raul, to understand those marks. But it seems like a hard thing to do. And I don’t know why you do it.”

Her wonder had changed to boredom. He frowned. He wanted someone to share this new world with him.

He remembered a place that would interest her. He took her down several levels to a much larger room. This time the pictures moved and they seemed to have real dimensions and the persons, oddly dressed, talked, using strange words scattered among those more familiar.

Raul said, “That is a story. I can understand it because I have learned the strange words — at least some of them.” In the dim light he saw her leaning forward, lips parted. The people in peculiar dress moved in strange rooms.

He turned it off. “Raul! It’s... beautiful. Make it appear again.”

“No. You don’t understand it.”

“It is like what I imagine the dreams must be, like they will be when we’re old enough to be allowed to dream. And I thought I could never wait. Please, Raul. Show me how to make it happen again.”

“No. You have no interest in these things. In women that wear strange colors and men that fight. Go on back down to your games, Leesa.”

She tried to strike him and then she wept. Finally he pretended to relent. “All right, Leesa. But you must start like I did. With the simple pictures. With the simple writing. And when you learn, then you can see all this again and you’ll understand it.”

“I’ll learn today!”

“In a hundred days. If you are quick and if you spend many hours here.”

He took her back to the first room and tried to help her. She wept again with frustration. At last the corridors dimmed and they knew that the time of sleep had come. Time had gone too quickly. They hurried back down to the others, hiding until the way was clear, then strolling in with exaggerated calm.

At sixteen Raul Kinson towered above every man in the world. He knew that it was time, and that the day was coming. He knew it from the way the women looked at him, from a new light in their eyes, a light that troubled him. They could not speak to him because until he was empowered to dream, he was still a child.

There were those who had certain duties. And, in each case, they instructed a young one of their choice in these duties in preparation for the time of death. There was a woman in charge of the rooms of childbirth, and another who cared for the young children. A man, fatter than others, organized the games of the adults. But of all those with special duties, Jord Orlan was the most powerful. He was aloof and quiet. He was in charge of dreams and the dreamers. He had wise, kind eyes and a face with a sadness of power in it.

Jord Orlan touched Raul Kinson lightly on the shoulder and led him to the far end of the tenth level, to the chambers where Jord Orlan lived alone, apart from the community life.

Raul felt a trembling excitement within him. He sat where Jord Orlan directed him to sit. He waited.

“After today, my son, you cease to be a child. All who are no longer children must dream. It is the privilege of being an adult. Those of you who come to me come with many wrong ideas of the dreams. That is because it is forbidden to discuss the dreams with children. Many of our people take the dreams too lightly. That is regrettable. They feel that the dreams are pure and undiluted pleasure, and they forget the primary responsibility of all those who dream. I do not wish you, my son, to ever forget that primary responsibility. In good time I shall explain it to you. In our dreams we are all-powerful. I shall take you to the glass case of dreams which shall be yours until the time of death. And I will show you how to operate the mechanism which controls the dreams. But first we shall talk of other matters. You have remained apart from the other children. Why?”

“I am different.”

“In body, yes.”

“And in mind. Their pleasures have never interested me.”

Orlan looked beyond him. “When I was small, I was the same.”

“May I ask questions? This is the first time I have been permitted to talk to an adult in this way.”

“Of course, my son.”