Dream Thief (9 page)

Something was moving in the churning depths of the hole— as if some enormous beast were thrashing out its life in agony. In the darkness he made out a roiling black mass heaving and subsiding, groaning and shuddering amidst the roar.

Now jagged flashes of blue lightning tore through the darkness, illuminating the pit. Clinging to the rocks he lowered himself to peer over the edge deep into the chaos below. In the piercing glare of the lightning bolts he saw strange shapes tumbling and tumbling, grinding against one another, crushing each other and sending up an endless cloud of powdery blue grit like a velvet mist.

Another flash peeled away the darkness and he saw clearly into the tumbling mass below. Some of the shapes were elongated and curved, others round and bulky as boulders, still others long and thin. In that instant he realized what it was that filled the huge stone caldron: bones. The gigantic bones of prehistoric monsters whirled below him in perpetual motion—a disjointed
danse macabre.

In that instant of recognition he felt his grip on the rocks give way and he fell. He twisted in the air and his hands clawed for a scrabbling hold on the smooth rock face, but it was too late. He plunged screaming into the grinding, churning dance of the bones.

SPENCE CAME TO HIMSELF
sitting upright on the couch. The trailing echo of his scream still rang in the darkened chamber like a fading memory. But the dream had vanished like a vapor. It was gone and he could remember nothing but the terror that had awakened him.

Presently the lights began to come up faintly. He guessed that Tickler stood behind the glass and heard the scream.

“Tickler,” he called.

“Yes, sir?” His assistant's voice grated metallically through the overhead speakers.

“Did I scream just now?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Did you hear anything unusual—a scream, a yell? Anything like that?”

“When, Dr. Reston?”

“Just now. When I woke up.”

“No, sir. The alarm went off in the control booth, so I turned on the lights. That is the procedure.”

“You're quite right. Thank you.” His heart was still beating rapidly. He could feel the tension in his shoulders and neck. His hands still clutched the sides of the cav couch in a death grip. He felt certain the scream had been real, that it was not merely part of his dream.

But why would Tickler lie about a thing like that? Perhaps he had not been in the booth when Spence screamed, or perhaps he was covering up the fact that he had himself dozed off at his post. Possibly. But it was not like Tickler.

Spence rose and stretched and made his way into the control room. Tickler was just winding the scan onto a spool. Spence watched him finish and place a seal on the loose end.

“Will that be all for now?” Tickler asked.

“Yes; you may go. I won't be needing anything further this shift, but tell Kurt when he comes in that I'd like the log posted and I'd like to see the averages for the last three sessions.”

“The averages?”

“Yes. Just as soon as he gets them finished.”

“But we have never—”

“Don't argue. Tickler. Please, just do as I say. I know it's a little extra work. But that's what we have an assistant for, isn't it?”

“Very well, I'll tell him.”

Tickler turned brusquely and went out.
I wonder what's eating him this time?
With Tickler it was always something.

Spence brushed the thought from his mind and left the control booth, crossed the lab, and entered his quarters. Despite the night's sleep he did not feel at all rested. He felt as though he had run several miles or climbed a sheer rock cliff. His muscles were tense and knotty and he could smell that he had sweated through his underclothes.

He thought to sanitize and change, but then had a better idea: the exerdome. Why not? He could use the exercise. Maybe he would find a threesome who needed a fourth for a game of pidg.

As he donned his silvered mylar exersuit it occurred to him that perhaps his problems stemmed from stress and overwork. He had exercised little since coming to Gotham; except for his occasional rambles through the garden and a swim now and then, he had indulged in no physically strenuous activity. A fast game of pidg or a few laps around the dome would loosen him up and relax him.

He took a main axial to the low-grav central tower of the city. Nearly weightless, he sprang four meters from the corridor to the lift and stepped onto a disc, pulling up the handgrips as it engaged the belt. Up he rose to the dome. He could hear laughter and shouts pinging down the metal tube from above. It reminded him of going swimming as a boy and hearing the sounds of happy frolic ringing from the pool a long way off.

When the lift gate opened he stepped off onto the spongy surface of the dome—or rather bounced off with the first step, for he was now completely weightless. He spun awkwardly for a moment before remembering to pull in his arms and legs to regain control. He brought his knees up to his chest and, when he floated near enough to the curved surface once again, thrust his legs down. He arrowed off the side of the dome and flew straightway toward the center. High above him a net stretched across the observation portion of the dome to keep errant human missiles from colliding with the tempered glass.

Beyond the netting he could see a bright mist of stars hanging in their inky void. Lower, he could see the upside-down crescent of the moon and the smaller blue thumbnail slice of the Earth. Spence flew into the netting, tucked his head down, and landed on his back. He pulled himself across the net to a near wall.

Above him a group of cadets performed an intricate display of aerial acrobatics—doing flips and somersaults across the center of the dome. Around the perimeter several joggers sped along the track; another group ran perpendicular to the first. A couple of fluffy pidg birds floated down near the lift platform. No one seemed interested in getting up a game, so Spence swam to the edge of the net and walked up the great bulging sphere of the dome to the red strip designated as the track.

The track's surface bore a slightly irregular, bumpy grain which gave a runner that little extra bit of traction needed to get moving in zero gravity. Spence carefully set his feet on the track and then started walking smoothly, with exaggerated care; one false step and he would go spinning off toward the center of the dome. But he maintained his concentration and increased the pace, feeling the illusion of weight return to him. Actually it was only momentum he felt, and which held him to the track. Soon he was running easily around the inner wall of the dome.

He caught the other joggers on the track and fell into pace with them. In the rhythm of running his muscles relaxed and the tension flowed from him. Automatically his body took over and his mind turned once again to the enigma of his dreams.

That he dreamed was certain. His REM line on the scan showed plainly what he knew instinctively, and if he required further proof the emotional residue—that silt left behind when the angry waters had raced on—was real enough. Not to remember a dream was normal enough; one remembered only the tiniest fraction of one's dreams over a lifetime. They simply flitted by in the night—spun out of the stuff of the subconscious and reabsorbed into the fabric of the psyche upon waking.

But blackouts were
not
normal. Spence felt as if whole chunks of his life were missing. There were gaps in his memory which he could not cross, dark curtains behind which he could not see. That scared him.

More than the nightmares, more than the cargo bay incident, he feared the helplessness, the utter defenselessness of not knowing what was happening to him. The carefully reasoned and researched framework of his life teetered precariously, threatening to topple completely, and he did not know what to do about it.

He lowered his head and spurted past the others. His lungs burned and sweat stung his eyes, but he continued running faster and faster as if to escape the fear which came swimming out of the darkness of the star-spangled night beyond the netting. Closing his eyes he thrust the fear from him as if it were a solid object he could throw aside.

AFTER HIS RUN
Spence lay motionless in the center of the dome, turning slowly on his own axis like a minor planet. The warm glow of exertion throbbed through his limbs. He had reached that blissful state of exhaustion where body and spirit were reconciled one to the other and the universe hummed with peace.

He listened to the play of others and watched through half-closed lids as the red line of the track circled him aimlessly. It was, he thought, a tribute to the supreme egotism of the mind that he seemed completely stationary while the entire space city of Gotham revolved around him. Around and around it went, spinning in its own lazy orbit—now the black mirror of the observation bubble, now the red line of the track.

The red line of the track. Something about that seemed important. Spence jerked his head up and sent himself floundering away at an obtuse angle. In the same instant it came to him: the red line of the track was the red line of his sleep scan. He had meant to check it, but had forgotten, or the thought had been driven from his mind by the circumstances of his latest blackout.

Suddenly it seemed more important than ever. He dove for the nearest wall and then propelled himself toward the lift platform. He raced back to the lab with his heart pounding and the certainty drumming in his brain that he was very close to finding an answer to the riddle of his dreams.

S
PENCE SNAPPED THE SEAL
and unrolled the strip to the beginning, watching meters and meters of paper tape unwind through his fingers. At the start of the tape he saw the date and time notation: EST 5/15/42 10:17 GM. The scan continued for nine and three-quarter hours without interruption. Each peak and every valley, every blip of an alpha spark or beta flash was duly recorded. He saw the minute fluctuations in cerebral blood flow; the rise and fall of body temperature, heart rate, and thyroid activity; the intermittent REM flutters. He saw, in short, the even, rhythmic progress of his night's sleep. His every moment was accounted for. Undeniably so—he held the evidence in his own hands.

But it was not enough. He turned to the cabinet where all the spools were kept. There were dozens of them, each one containing the polysomnographic information of one night's sleep session. He lifted the row containing the scans of the last week. He checked each one. They were all there, labeled and sealed correctly.

He checked the week before that and the next one, too. All was in order. Tickler was as precise as he was stuffy. Spence knew that if he looked at every spool over the last ten weeks he would find them in order. Still, a small gray shadow of doubt clung to his mind.

He turned once more to the scan he had unrolled—the one from the night of his first blackout three days ago. He pulled the tape through his hands and examined it closely. It was no different from all the others.

He spied the yellow plastic cover of the log book on the corner of the console and pulled it to him. On top of the log book lay a piece of green graph paper on which was plotted the averages Spence had requested for the last three sessions. Kurt must have come in and finished it while he was out. He glanced at the graph of the averages and then opened the log book and traced up the columns to the session of the fifteenth. He found no irregularities in any of the figures or information. He closed the book with the sinking feeling that all was in order and only he was out of sync.

He threw the book down on the console and leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head. If an answer existed to his problems it would have to exist in some form in the hard data before him. Somewhere in the miles of tape, or in the figures in the book, the key to the locked room of his mind could be found. Of that he was certain. His faith in the scientific method stood on solid, unshakable rock.

On a whim he swiveled to the data screen at one end of the console. The wafer-thin, half-silvered glass shone smooth as polished stone. “MIRA,” said Spence, “Spence Reston here. Ready for command.”

A mellifluous female voice said, “Ready, Dr. Reston.”

Spence uttered the simple command: “Compare entries for PSG Seven Series LTST five-fifteen to five-eighteen for similarities. Display only, please.”

He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. Instantly the wafer screen flashed to life and the results began filling the screen. It seemed there were many similarities between one night's scan and the next in terms of basic numerical components. All of the information gathered during a scanning session was translated into numbers for purposes of data storage and retrieval. They were all alike in many ways, and yet all different.

The command was too broad. That much he could see, but he did not know how to narrow the question because he did not know precisely what he was looking for. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at the screen. Just what did he hope to find?

After several minutes of hard thought he stood and-began pacing the cramped confines of the booth.
Compare and contrast,
he thought.
That's where you start on a fishing expedition of this type. Compare and contrast.

He had already compared and that had not shown him anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps contrasting the same information would produce something. He turned to the screen and said, “Contrast PSG LTST entries for five-fifteen to five-eighteen. Display only, please.”