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diff --git a/58670-0.txt b/58670-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79d9601 --- /dev/null +++ b/58670-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,876 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58670 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + Dreamer's World + + By Bryce Walton + +_They wanted a world without war. The answer was simple: Stay in bed._ + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science +Fiction, May 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +A warning hum started somewhere down in the audoviso. + +Greg stared. Perspiration crawled down his face. This was it. This was +the end of the nightmare. This had to be Pat Nichols. + +After seventy-two hours in which Greg had had to do without anesthesia! +Seventy-two hours of reality! Seventy-two hours of _consciousness_! +Consciousness. Reality. + +Greg didn't know how he'd managed to remain sane. + +It seemed incredible that a man who had advanced to Stage Five in +the Dream Continuity Scale, and who had been in anesthesia most of +the time, could suffer seventy-two hours of boring, drab, dreary and +revolting reality. And still be sane. + +Pat Nichols was the answer. Her body faded into slim and luscious focus +on the three-dim screen. Her brooding eyes and wide mouth that curled +so reprovingly. + +[Illustration: _In his mind was the certainty: This is no dream._] + +She had gone psycho. Had fled from the Cowl into the dreadful Outside, +seventy-two hours ago. Gone to join that fanatical group of Venusian +Colonists, those outlaw schizoids who planned to start over on Venus. + +"Pat!" Greg's hand reached as though she weren't just a three-dim +image. "Listen, Pat! Thank the Codes, you haven't blasted yet. I've +been crazy, waiting for this call. Pat, I can't even go into integrated +anesthesia without you around. My dreams don't seem to focus right." + +"That's too bad, Greg," she said. + +He moistened his lips slowly. He slid his hand toward the warning +button beneath the table. Her eyes didn't notice, never left his face. +Accusative, sad eyes. + +He felt sick. He pushed the button. Now! Now Drakeson up on the +apartment roof would trace the point of her call. He'd chart her +location with the rhodium tracker beams. Then the two of them would +go and pick Pat up and prevent that insane, suicidal, one-way trip to +Venus. + +She might consider it a very unfair thing, but then she was psycho. +She'd be glad of it, after she was brought back, brain-probed, and +re-conditioned. The thought made Greg even more ill. Brain-probing and +re-conditioning involved months of a kind of mental agony that no one +could adequately describe. The words were enough to give anesthetic +nightmares to any Citizen. But, it was for the good of the Cowls, and +of the psychos. + +Her voice was sad too, like her eyes. "I was hoping you would join me, +Greg. Anyway, I called to tell you that in about five hours, we're +blasting. This is goodby." + +He said something. Anything. Keep her talking, listening. Give Drakeson +a chance to employ the rhodium tracker, and spot her location. + +A kind of panic got loose in Greg's brain. "Pat, don't you have any +insight at all? Can't you see that this is advanced psychosis, that--" + +She interrupted. "I've tried to explain to you before, Greg. But you've +always preferred anesthesia. You loathe reality. But I'm part of +reality." + +Yes. He had dreams. The anesthetic cubicles, Stage Five where a man was +master of thalamic introjection, dream imagery. A stage where any part +of reality was supposed to have faded into utter inconsequence. But Pat +Nichols had always been a part of his conditioned personality pattern. +By taking her out of it, fate had struck him with an unbalance in +psyche that disturbed the sole objective of life--to dream. + +"But that's a suicide trip, Pat, and you'll never have a chance to be +cured of your schizophrenia, even if you do get to Venus--" + +Her interruption had weariness in it. + +"Goodby, Greg. I'm sorry for you. That silly status quo, and futile +dreaming. It will never let you realize what a fine man you are. You'll +decay and die in some futile image. So goodby, Greg. And good dreaming." + +She was gone from the screen. Maybe from earth, unless he got out there +and stopped her before that suicide ship rocketed out from its hidden +subterranean blast tube. + + * * * * * + +Greg Hurried. He didn't realize he could function so rapidly in the +world of physical reality. In seconds he had zipped thin resilient +aerosilk about his body, and was running across the wide plastic mesh +roof toward the heliocruiser in which Drakeson was waiting. + +Greg felt the physical power flow as he ran. It sickened him. The +conditioners kept the body in good shape, but only to allow the +cortical-thalamic imagery faculties to function better. Actual physical +business like this was revolting to any Cowl citizen. Any sort of +physical and materialistic activity, divorced from anesthesia, might be +a sign of encroaching psychosis. + +That was the fear. That fear of psychosis that might lead to violence. +To change. The Cowls over the Cities protected them from any physical +interference with an absolutely stabile, unchanging and static culture. +But the Cowls hadn't been able to protect the Citizenry from insanity. +During the past year, psychosis had been striking increasingly, without +warning, indiscriminately. + +Greg dropped down beside the thin ascetic figure at the controls. He +grabbed Drakeson's arm. + +"Did you pick it up, Drake?" + +"Uh-huh," Drakeson drawled. His mouth was cynical, his gray eyes +somber. "Traced it down to a ten meter radius, but it's underground. +About five miles out of Old Washington, just inside the big +radioactivated forest east of the Ruins. About half an hour's flight as +the crow might fly. If there was a crow left." + +"Then let's go. Lift this gadget out of here!" + +A spot of nausea bounced into Greg's stomach at Drakeson's reference +to what the big Chain blow-up had done to almost all high cellular +life forms, including crows. Only insects and a few shielded humans +had withstood the radiation. Most higher complex cellular organisms +had paid for their complexity. But thanks to the establishment of the +Cowled Cities and the Codes of non-change, non-violence, they wouldn't +have to pay again. No chance for social change now that might lead to +another such disaster. + +If they could only trace the cause for this psychosis epidemic-- + +Greg hadn't thought about it at all until Pat had started talking +peculiarly, then when she had broken up completely and left the Cowl, +then it had hit home, hard. + +The heliocruiser lifted slowly under Drakeson's awkward guidance. Only +the Controllers, the Control Council Guards, could work the gadgetry +of the City with practiced ease. Everybody else, naturally, was +conditioned to various anesthesia states, and had no reason to deal +with materialistic things. + +The cruiser lifted until it was flying directly beneath the opaque +stuff of the Cowl, lost in the dazzling rainbows of sunlight shattering +through. + +Drakeson said. "We'll keep up here. Maybe the Controllers won't see us." + +"What?" A peculiar coolness slid along Greg's spine. + +"Maybe they won't see us," repeated Drakeson, and then he smiled wryly. +"Listen, Greg. You're way ahead of me in the Dream Continuity. You're a +lot further away from reality than I am. More impractical. So listen to +a word or two before we try to break through the Cowl. + +"We've never been Outside, don't forget that. It's dangerous. You +haven't considered any of the angles. For example, I picked up a couple +of shielding suits which you hadn't thought of. And two small wrist +Geigers. If I hadn't thought of them, then we'd probably have been +contaminated with hard radiation out there, and would have been thrown +into the septic pools for about six months." + +Greg shivered. That would have been very bad. + +"It's deadly out there; poisonous, Greg. Only the insane have wanted +to go Outside for the last few years, and only the Controllers have +been out, and then only to try to track down the hiding places of the +Colonists. You hadn't considered that, but I did. So I had to steal a +couple of heat-blasters, from the Museum...." + +"You what?" Greg stared at the two deadly coiled weapons Drakeson +dragged from beneath the seat. "Do the Controllers know?" + +"They've probably found out by now, or will very soon," Drakeson looked +grim. "They'll be after us with sky-cars and para-guns. And they're +sure to slap a psycho label on us. They would anyway, probably, for +just going Outside. But having destructive forbidden weapons on us, +they're sure to, and we couldn't go Outside without weapons, Greg." + +That was right, Greg knew. Paralysis guns wouldn't have been enough out +there. Drakeson said softly: + +"Is she worth it, Greg? We may have to be brain-probed. Is she worth +that kind of pain?" + + * * * * * + +Greg's stomach seemed to tie up in knots. Brain-probing, psychometry. +Greg whispered hoarsely. "She's worth it, Drake. And besides, it's +ridiculous to think that we'll be suspected. I'm only interested in +preventing Pat from making that suicide trip. The Controllers have the +same interest." + +"But that's their job. You and I aren't supposed to be concerned with +reality. They've gotten very sensitive this last year. They can't +take any chances. At the least sign of disintegration, they have to +apprehend and send you to psychometry." + +Greg said. "You trying to get out of your bargain, Drake? If you don't +want that carton of Stage Five dream capsules, then--" + +"Oh no, I'll take a chance to get that carton. I never thought I'd get +a chance to experience such premature dreams. It's worth the gamble, we +might get away without being probed." + +Greg's head ached. Reality always gave him a headache. He wasn't used +to it. A man who had reached Stage Five had been an anesthesiac too +long to find reality comfortable. + +"I know the Codes," Greg whispered. "Legally, there's no reason to +be apprehended just for leaving the Cowl. And as for the blasters, +well--we can drop them off, hide them, if the Controllers get after us." + +The cruiser moved down the sloping arc of the Cowl toward the dark +patch that Greg recognized as a merging chamber. The plastic spires +of the City reached up around them as though reaching for the sun. +Only a few human figures could be seen far below, on roofs, and in the +streets. A few low stage humans not in anesthesia. + +Greg crawled into the shielding suit. He took over the unfamiliar +controls while Drakeson got his own shielding suit on. They weren't +heavy, but were sluggish material that could throw off ordinary +radiation. + +Behind him Greg heard Drakeson's harsh yell. "Sky-cars! Ten of them! +Shooting up out of the Control Tower and coming right toward us! Merge, +and merge fast, Greg, if you still want to go Outside." + +Inside the thick sheeting of the suit, Greg's skin was soaked with +perspiration. His face was strained as he moved the cruiser into +the first lock chamber. The cruiser had to move through a series of +locks to the Outside. A precaution to keep bacteria, radiation, other +inimical elements from coming in while an exit from the Cowl was being +made. + +One by one the locks opened and closed as grav-hooks pulled the cruiser +through. It was a precariously balanced culture, this one inside the +Cowls, Greg thought. Like living inside a gigantic sealed test-tube. +Any slightly alien elements introduced into that test-tube could make +it a place of sealed death in a short time. A rigidly controlled, +non-changing environment. That was fine, except that some humans within +it had a habit of changing, and for the worse. Retrogression, psychosis. + +Psychometry was trying frantically to find the cause. It seemed obvious +that the Venusian Colonists might be causing psychotics to appear in +order to swell their ranks of volunteers to go to Venus to start a "new +dynamic, progressive order." Madness. Suicide. + +Progressive evolutionary philosophies meant change, and change might +lead anywhere. But eventually it could only lead to another horrible +_Chain_. One Chain had been enough. + +The earth had been thoroughly wrecked. The few survivors had set +up the anti-reality standards, the Cowls and the Codes--and the +Controllers. They established the Dream Continuity that led to the +various anesthetic stages. + +But people went insane. They disagreed. They fled the Cowls. Venusian +Colonial Enterprises resulted. It was organized insanity. A neatly +planned psychosis, with grandiose delusions of justification. They +would save humanity! Madness. Schizophrenia. + +Venusian Colonization had been organized three years before. At least +four known spaceships had been constructed, stocked, and blasted. They +changed their subterranean hideouts after each blast. It had just never +occurred to Greg that Pat could go psycho and join them. + +It was even more ridiculous for the Controllers to suspect _him_ of +being psycho. + +He felt a little better as the cruiser broke out beyond the Cowl and +into the blazing natural sun of noon. It blinded Greg. Frightened him a +little. + +He'd never seen the sun before, except dimmed by the Cowl. + +He sent the cruiser climbing rapidly above the weird grotesque terrain. +Drakeson jumped into the seat beside him. His face was white. + +"Open the converter feed valves wide, Greg! Clear open! The Control +cars aren't stopping at the merger. They're coming on through. They're +right behind us." + +Greg looked back. Ten sky-cars, and within neuro-gun range. He jerked +the converter wide open. Acceleration slammed him back hard. He knew +now what fear was. In dreams you never suffered it. + + * * * * * + +The audio in the control panel cracked out. + +"Dalson! Drakeson! Turn around! Re-enter the Cowl. Return immediately. +This is a Control Council order. Do so or we fire with full charge +neuro-blasts." + +Paralysis guns. And full blast. Greg swallowed. They meant business. +And without even a formal enquiry! + +Drakeson said in a whisper. "What are we going to do?" + +Greg didn't know. How could they think he was psycho? + +Drakeson licked his lips. "I don't want to go under the brain-probers, +Greg. Nobody does. I don't want to be re-conditioned. I want to stay +like I am. I'm not psycho. And they'll brain-probe us sure if we don't +turn around and go back. And even if we do--" + +The audio's cold impersonal voice said: + +"This is the last order. The neuro-guns are ready to fire." + +Greg's mind ran in mad circles. He tried to think. He felt Drakeson +move, and then he saw Drakeson's hand with that infernal injection +solution jiggling around in a big hypodermic syringe. + +"I've just given myself another shot, Greg. You'd better have another +right now. If we land down there we'll need all the adrenolex we can +get." + +Greg hardly felt the injection as he tried to think, clarify his +situation. I'm not psycho, he thought desperately. I'm doing something +a little bit different, but it isn't psychosis. + +But good integrated citizens would not fight against the orders from +Control. All right. He would submit to brain-probing. But he'd get +Pat out of that trap she was in first. He might be able to talk her +out of it if he could get to her personally, be with her a while. The +Controllers certainly couldn't. They'd drive her away into space as +soon as she saw them. + +The solution. A legality. He knew the Codes didn't he? + +He yelled back at the pursuing sky-cars via the audio: + +"Don't fire those neuro-guns. This is Greg Dalson speaking. There's +a law against any aggressive destructive action on the part of any +Citizen." + +The audio replied. "The neuro-guns aren't destructive. Temporary +paralysis." + +Greg said. "This cruiser is at a high altitude and traveling fast. If +you paralyze us now, the cruiser will crash. By using the neuro-guns on +us, you will be destructive, homicidal." + +A dead silence greeted this statement. Greg went on. "I'm a Stage Five +citizen. Legally, there's no restriction against going outside the +Cowl. I'll report your action and attitudes to the Council if you fire +those neuro-guns." + +Drakeson choked something unintelligible. His face was deathly pale. +"Clever," he whispered. "But that clinches it. When we do go back, it's +psychometry for us, Greg." + +Finally the audio answered. The voice was not so cold. It had a tinge +of emotionalism. It said. "A technicality, but it does prevent us from +firing the neuro-guns. However, we feel it our duty to remain with you +until you do return to the Cowl. Because of the recent epidemic of +psychosis, we find this authorized by the Control Council...." + +Greg savagely flipped off the audio. Drakeson said. "If they stay on +our trail, we'll lead them right to Pat. They'll scare her away before +you get a chance to talk with her, and try to prevent her from going on +the ship." + +"I know," Greg said. "I know. We've got to figure something--" + +He looked down at the fantastic semi-organic flora below. "How far to +go yet, Drake?" + +"About three minutes." + +"All right. We'll set the cruiser down here, and walk to where Pat is." + +Drakeson choked. "That's suicide," he said. "We won't have a chance." + + * * * * * + +Greg didn't have time to be surprised at his own actions. He pulled +Drakeson's hands away from the controls. Drakeson was trying to stop +him from bringing the cruiser down. + +Drakeson gasped. "Even with the heat-blasters, we'll never get a +hundred meters away from where we land. I figured on landing directly +over the place--" + +"So will the Controllers," Greg said. He hurled Drakeson back, heard +him sprawl on the mesh flooring where he lay, half sobbing. + +Greg angled the ship down abruptly. "As soon as we land, I'm running +for it," he called back. "The Controllers will be down there swarming +all over us, and I don't want to lead them to where Pat is." + +Drakeson crawled over to the bunk and sat on it. "All right," he said. +"I'm with you. It's too late to get out of it now. For a carton of +premature dreams, I've gotten myself stuck with a psycho tag. I'm +stuck with it anyway, now. Might as well go on, and stay out of the +brain-probers as long as possible." + +Greg felt a tingling crawl up his wrists as they dropped down above +the gigantic, semi-organic forest. Mutated cells in the process of +change had played havoc with the pre-Chain life forms. According to +what little he had gotten from info-tapes, there was no longer any +distinction or at least very little, between organic and inorganic +life, outside the Cowls. + +Psycho. He'd still argue with Drakeson about that, but he didn't have +time. He wasn't psycho. As soon as he persuaded Pat to abandon the +flight, they'd give themselves up, return to the Cowl, and things would +return to normal, to anesthesia, Stage Five, then Six, then Seven, on +to the final eternal dream. + +That's the way it was going to be. + +And if they had to suffer the hells of brain-probing and the awful +ego-loss of re-conditioning, then they would do that too. It was +for the good of the Cowls, the preservation of the Codes. A noble +sacrifice. Must be no change. No menace to stability. Any suggestion of +change made one suspect. + +Greg's eyes misted as he brought the cruiser to a half-crash landing. +Even as he tried to bring his blurred vision into focus, he was running +to the exit. He had the sliding panel open. He was up to his knees in +writhing tendrils. He was running through a crimson twilight. + +Behind him, he heard Drakeson tearing through the tendrils, and +clutching vines. Overhead he could hear the drone of the sky-car's +atomurbinic motors. Whether they would land and continue the search on +foot through the deadly forest, Greg couldn't know. + +He didn't know anything about the Controllers' methods. "How far, +Drake," he yelled through the inter-person audio. Drakeson came running +up beside Greg. Severed strings of torn, still living life-stuff +writhed from his shoulders and legs. + +"I'd say about half a mile straight ahead. That's a long way through +this nightmare." + +Greg screamed. A broad mushroom-like growth had opened a mouth. A +gigantic, sickeningly gray mouth full of deadly, flesh-eating acid. + +A flower-bright vine with great tensile strength raked Drakeson in +toward that gaping maw. + +Drakeson's arms were held tight against his sides. He was +straining--helpless. Through the glassine mask of his helmet, Greg saw +Drakeson's face turning red with constriction. + +His voice came to Greg in a burst of fear. "The gun, Greg! The +heat-blaster--quick--" + +Greg leaned forward, staring in rigid fascination. Fleshy stocks swayed +toward him. Other mouths opened, petal mouths. Gigantic floral traps, +and cannibal blooms. + +"Greg! Greg!" Drakeson was framed now by that great cannibal maw. + +Greg had the heat-blaster up. He had it leveled. But he couldn't +depress the firing stud. + +"Drake! I can't! I can't!" + +How could any integrated man be deliberately destructive? How could any +sane person--kill? + +"I can't--Drake--" The awful conflict seemed to rip through his +body. He felt the sweat, hot and profuse, rolling down his face. He +concentrated on that gun, on his finger, on the firing stud. + +The cannibal blossom was closing. Sticky juices dripped over Drakeson. +He was screaming. Greg's finger lifted. He could not fire. + +The Codes said no destruction. No killing. The Codes had been +established after the great Chain disaster. Violence begets violence, +the Codes said. And once begun, it was accumulative, like the snowball +rolling down hill. + +Greg sagged. His knees buckled. He sprawled out in the slippery muck. +Tendrils swished softly and hungrily around him. He heard a shout. He +tried to twist his head. Figures blurred before his eyes, and he heard +the deadly _chehowwwwww_ of a terrific blast. + +The last thing he remembered before the dark wrapped him up softly and +warmly, was the cannibal plant exploding in a million fragments of +stringy tissue, and Drakeson falling free. + +_I didn't fire_, he was thinking. _Someone else saved Drakeson. But I +think I might have done it. My finger--it was moving--bending--or was +it? No. I couldn't have been destructive. Couldn't have killed._ + + * * * * * + +Consciousness came back to Greg. Painfully. It came back slowly and it +took a long time. He lifted his eyelids. He raised himself to a sitting +position. He stared down a gloomy, phosphorescent corridor. It was +obviously subterranean. It was damp, chill. Cold luciferin light glowed +from lichen on walls and low ragged ceiling. + +It was long and it finally curved, he decided. But he could look back +into a long slow curve of corridor and ahead into the same. Here and +there, the mouths of branch corridors came in. + +He looked at his hand. It still clutched the butt of the heat-blaster. + +He felt strange. The surroundings were very real, yet they seemed +somehow not real. The shock of trying to fire that blaster when the +sanity in him shrieked "No!" had been too much for him. The shock had +blanked him out. + +He breathed a deep sigh of temporary relief and triumph. He hadn't +killed. He thought of Drakeson. Somebody had saved him. Someone had +killed. Not the Controllers. They could employ only the neuro-guns to +paralyze. So he decided that Colonists had probably saved Drakeson. + +Terror gripped Greg then. He remembered Drakeson yelling at him, the +distended eyes, the straining face. And how he himself had almost given +in, had almost killed. + +_Had almost gone psycho._ + +But he hadn't. That was the important thing. He was still a sane, +integrated part of the Cowls and the Codes. And after a test like +that, he figured that nothing could break him. Let them send him to +psychometry. Let them clamp on the brain-probers and leave them on for +months. They'd not find any psycho tendencies in Greg Dalson. + +Greg tried to reason. But he had no place, no foundation, for a +beginning. He didn't know where he was, or why he had been left here. +He knew that someone, the Colonists probably, had saved Drakeson from +that plant thing. Some mental pressure had blacked him out, he thought, +and then what? He didn't know. + +Which way? It didn't seem to matter. He started walking. + +He was bone-weary. His head throbbed. His eyes burned. And he was +afraid. He had gotten himself into a completely un-Codified situation. +He was lost, helpless, outside the protection of the Cowls, the Codes, +and anesthesia. + +He was surrounded by reality. Reality in all its essential horror. +Conflict. Physical danger. Uncertainties. Materialistic barriers. All +the old shibboleths that the Cowls and the Codes and the anesthetic +dreams had protected him from. + +And all because of Pat Nichols. + +But he'd stood a big test. And he'd won. He hadn't killed. He wasn't +destructive. He-- + +The cry touched his ears and died. It was too violent and filled with +pain and terror to make any definite impression the first time. He +crouched. His eyes distended. The scream came again, and this time it +chopped through him. His nerves seemed to shrivel and curl beneath the +repeated onslaughts of the screams. + +Then he was running. He didn't know why, except that he had to run. He +ran with fearful, gasping desperation. But he didn't know why. + + * * * * * + +He ran past the mouth opening into the main corridor. Then came back +and ran into the darker, strangely-lighted artery. He ran harder. And +yet he wasn't running. Not all of him. As he ran, he was conscious of +some undefinable, but terrific conflict. + +Beneath the suit, his skin burned with sweat. He felt the rigid pattern +of tensed neck and jaw muscles. + +_I don't feel at all familiar. Something's very wrong. Everything's +wrong. I'm displaced, like something that has slipped into an alien +dimension._ + +He stopped, quickly. His heart seemed to swell, burst with terror. +Terror and something else. The something else came, and with it came +horror of itself. The emotion, and then horror of the emotion. He stood +shivering, his teeth clacking like an ancient abacus. + +"Pat!" He screamed her name. The cry pounded back into his ears inside +the helmet. + +This wasn't Drakeson. This was Pat. Pat was going to die now. Not +Drakeson. + +The walls were--_alive_. They were not like the walls of the corridors. +This was a circular chamber, and the walls were sagging and undulating +like part of a giant's flesh. He heard heavy sluggish sounds. + +Masses of the gray viscous stuff sagged, changed form, remolded itself +into monstrous shapes. + +Pat! Only her face and part of her upper body were visible now. The +shielding of her suit had been cracked wide open by pressure as the +semi-organic thing, whatever it was, had closed around her. + +The walls rushed in as Greg stumbled drunkenly. The ceiling sagged +lower. Long knobs fell, like globules of paste, then lengthened into +shapeless tendrils that snapped out at Greg. + +He fell back. + +Pat's scream penetrated again. No beauty remained in her face now. Her +eyes were sick. Her lips were loose and trembling. + +"Greg--help me--help me--see what it does--the others--" + +He saw the others then. Maybe he hadn't noticed before, because his +mind didn't want him to see. + +Husks. Pallid wrinkled husks, sucked dry and shriveled. Several figures +not recognizable anymore, hardly recognizable as human. Just vaguely +human, broken, sucked dry. + +His mind seemed covered by a grotesque shadow. His flesh crawled and +his throat turned dry, and perspiration made a stream down his throat. +He felt his eyes looking down at his right hand. + +It held the heat-blaster. The skin felt tight as though it would split +as he gripped the heavy butt of the coiled weapon. + +He concentrated on the finger that was frozen on the firing stud. If he +could destroy, then he was insane. His experience with Drakeson, that +had been no test at all compared with this. This was Pat. Pat, and she +was dying--dying unspeakably. + +This was the great test of his sanity. He concentrated on the finger. +He must keep it frozen. He must back out of here. Get away, get back to +the Cowl, back to anesthesia and sleep. + +The finger raised slowly from the stud. His feet lifted as his body +moved fitfully back, back, back-- + +"Greg--help me, Greg--" + +Her eyes stopped him. They tumbled into terrible clarity. She whispered +starkly. + +"Greg--help me--kill it, Greg. For me--Kill it." + +He felt his lips part in a great and terrible cry of torture. His +shoulders began to twitch slightly. His arms and fingers took up the +jerky rhythm. Horror and a violent crimson flood of unfamiliar emotions +mushroomed like a volcano of madness. Something began crumbling away. + +He lurched forward. He felt the heat-blaster heaving, throwing out its +deadly load. The gun had weight and power in his hand as he crouched +lower and moved in. + +The power load swathed in long slicing arcs. Steam and sickening stench +fell around him. He moved in. He stumbled forward kicking out to right +and left at the quivering slices of stuff that were falling around him. + +Destruction. Kill. Death. This was all three, and in a giant, almost +inconceivable quantity. + +Her face through the steaming cloud. Her throat moving as she +swallowed. Brightness, the brightness of disbelief and impossibility +coming into her eyes. + +He kept moving in until the monstrous mutated gray thing was thoroughly +dead. Until every separate tendril and patch was blasted to smoke. Then +he lifted her broken body in his arms. + +Tears fell on the opaqueness of his helmet. "I'm sorry, Pat," he +choked. "I'm sorry it didn't happen sooner. I'm sorry I waited too +long--but it isn't easy--to let yourself go insane." + +Something was wrong. Pat! Pat! She seemed to be fading away from +him, drifting away, melting into tattered veils of cloud. Her face +became only two bright glad eyes, then they also melted together into +a radiant pool. He toppled into the pool. He sank down, a wonderful +lifelessness spreading through him. + +He closed his eyes. Something was beginning to be very funny. In the +thickening dark, he laughed a little. And in that laugh was a crazy, +climbing note of--triumph. + + * * * * * + +He opened his eyes. He was laughing, in a kind of soft hysteria. He was +on a couch. Not a dream couch, but just a plain hard bed. He sat up +stiffly. Pain tingled down his legs. He saw Pat Nichols. And another. A +man. He remembered him vaguely, one of the first who had escaped from +the Cowl. His name--yes--he remembered now. Merrol. + +Pat Nichols, alive, and smiling. Very beautiful too in a brief aerosilk +bra and shorts and sandals. Her hair was a dark lovely cloud flowing +down over bare shoulders. + +"Hello, Greg," she said softly. "Welcome to--the Colonists." + +"What?" He swung his legs around. "I don't understand. Not entirely." + +Merrol, a gaunt elderly man, nodded from behind a desk. Merrol's hair +was gray and sparse. Strange, seeing a man who showed age. Within the +Cowls, one never grew physically old. + +Pat said, "This is Ralph Merrol, Personnel Director of Venusian +Colonization Enterprises." + +Greg's numbness was filtering away beneath Pat's warm glad eyes. He +raised his hand. The heat-blaster was still gripped in his fingers. It +evidently hadn't been fired. + +"It was all illusion," he said. "The scene in the cavern. It never +happened?" + +Merrol's care-lined face nodded. "It happened, but in your mind, Greg. +We rescued you and Drakeson from the cannibal plant. We brought you +here. You had lost consciousness. We put you under the hypnosene rays, +and put you through an experience that was quite real to you. We proved +something to ourselves, and to you. Greg--you're sane now." + +Greg tried to understand. The thing didn't make sense yet, but the +glimmerings of the truth were beginning to solidify in his aching brain. + +"Sane? But I killed. I wanted to kill. I wanted to destroy, and I did. +That's hardly the actions of a--sane man." + +Merrol smiled thinly. "From our point of view it is, Greg. We consider +ourselves sane. We consider the Cowled Cities, and the Codes insane. +It's relative I supposed, but I think we can convince you, if we +haven't already." + +Greg looked at Pat. She smiled. He smiled back. "Justified or not," +he whispered. "I'm here. Sane or insane, I'm one of the Colonists +now I guess. Unless I want to return to the Cowls, be probed and +re-conditioned." + +Pat whispered. "Do you, Greg?" + +He shook his head. "Not now. I'm tired. I don't want to now. Maybe I +never will. All I want now, is rest." + +Merrol leaned across the desk. "Before you rest, you'd better get a +few things straight, Greg. We want you to be convinced that you're +doing the right thing. We feel that the big Chain blow-up shocked +the whole human race into a mass psychosis, comparable to individual +cases of hysteria, schizophrenia, escape from reality. That's why +the non-change, non-aggressiveness Codes were established. Also, the +anesthesia, the Dream Continuity Scale--nothing but hysteria on a mass +and planned basis." + +Merrol got up. He walked around and sat down beside Greg. + +"Carried out to its inevitable end, this could only lead to mass +racial suicide. That's obvious. It was a static dead end. A few people +recovered from the psychosis. They escaped, and formed the Colonists. +But their own welfare wasn't the most important thing. + +"They concerned themselves then with the freeing of the Citizens of +the Cowls from their psychosis. The world is untenable on a large +scale now, due to radioactive poisoning. It will remain untenable for +some time. Meanwhile we decided to Colonize Venus. We've established +Colonies there. Thriving communities, but the important thing is this, +Greg--it's given new impetus and enthusiasm to those who become sane +and escape the Cowls. It presents a big challenge and solidifies the +cure. + +"It's bigger than Control has any idea that it is. It will take a long +time yet, but we'll win. You have noticed the increase in so-called +insanity in the Cowls. It really means just the opposite. Our numbers +are increasing by leaps and bounds." + +Greg said, "The Controllers think you're using some psychological or +physical pressure to create these--cures." + +Merrol smiled. "We've got a recruiting system. Drakeson, for example, +is a spy. We have spies all over the Cowls." + +Greg stared. "Drakeson?" + +A door opened. The lean cynical man entered, nodded, and stood beside +Pat. His eyes shone more brightly as he looked at Greg. + +"That's right," Drakeson said. "Remember the two injections. I said +they were adrenolex. They weren't. Our spies inside the Cowls are +equipped with a supply of a certain aggression factor. It used to be +called Kappa, or K, for killer. This factor is handed down through +the generations in the general cell protoplasm. It forces aggressive +tendencies. It makes a man capable of physical aggressive action, and +able to kill, if he has to. High motivation is required though, in most +cases. With you, my probable death wasn't enough. It took the vision of +Pat here in the clutches of a monster to make the Kappa factor work on +you, Greg." + +Greg rubbed his eyes. Pat came over and he took her hand, held it +tightly. A warmth came out of her and into him, into his mind. + + * * * * * + +Drakeson went on. "We isolated the Kappa factor, made it into solution. +We all have it, even the anesthetic citizens of the Cowls, but the mass +shock psychosis won't let it work. However, a strong overload of Kappa +injection will sometimes break the psychosis, force the person back +into an aggressive personality, capable of destruction. Each individual +carries an armament of between 200 and 800 particles of the Kappa +factor after we give an injection. It took 1600 particles to break your +suicidal hysteria." + +Pat squeezed his hand. Greg looked up. He grinned with a kind of glad +embarrassment. + +"I don't know yet whether to thank you or not. Frankly though, I do +feel better." + +He thought of the Cowls. Test-tubes, glass cages, and dreams that led +finally to the final anesthesia, death. He shuddered, and tried to push +the memory out of his mind. It seemed unhealthy now. Unclean and--yes, +it did seem insane. + +He raised his eyes to the ceiling. He saw the self-inverting three +dimensional mechanism that had given him that starkly real adventure +in which he had been able to kill, for Pat. A dream sequence, partly +hypnotic, partly created by cathode image activating the multi-phase +AC. A high harmonic of multi-phase AC field hanging over him, and a +focusing radiator. Dream. Nightmare. + +He looked at Pat. "I think I'll take reality now," he said softly. He +felt the pull on his arm, and he got up. She led him through a door and +into a soft twilight. He held her tightly against him. + +She whispered. "The ship's waiting for us, Greg. The next ship. You're +already on the passenger list. You see, I knew you'd come with us. I +was hoping so desperately, I couldn't think any differently." + +He kissed her. He held her more tightly as though--as though-- + +He felt her warm muscles tense against him. Her eyes widened. + +"Greg! What is it?" + +He shook his head. "I--I got to wondering if this too, might not be +just a dream. I've been in anesthesia too long maybe. How can I know +what's real and what isn't real?" + +He felt her warm moist fingers on the back of his neck. He felt her +lift on her toes, pull his face down. She kissed him. Her voice was +husky, and her breath was warm on his lips. + +"Do you know now, Greg? Is this a dream?" + +He shook his head. His voice was hoarse. + +"No--no--this isn't a dream." + +She laughed softly. They moved away, down the corridor toward the ship. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dreamer's World, by Bryce Walton + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58670 *** |