Wine of the Dreamers (18 page)

“Don’t. Please don’t.”

“Don’t tell me, my sister, that you have come to believe those creatures exist,” he said mockingly. “What could have changed your mind?”

Her eyes were grave on his. There was an odd dignity
about her. “I cannot think it out the way you do. I was in his mind. I know his thoughts, his memories and his dreams. I know him better than I know myself. It is just that I cannot go on living in a universe where he does not exist. And if he exists, then all the others do. You have been right. All the others have been wrong, as wrong as I have been.”

“I should trust you now?”

“Is there any reason for distrusting me … now?”

He took her hands and lifted her to her feet, and he smiled. “I shall trust you again. If you help me, maybe we can find him again. I know how you feel, Leesa, because I cannot … stop thinking, remembering. She was …”

“Sharan Inly?”

He turned away from her. “Yes, and a cruel trap for both of us, Leesa.”

“How can I help you?”

“I am going out to the ships. I am going to try to board one. I have learned some of the operating instructions. Our lifetimes will be long over before Earth builds another ship like the one you destroyed. Those ships out there have the same principle. I shall board one and I shall take it to Earth.”

Her eyes grew wide, shocked. “But …”

“It may be too cold out there. I may die. There may not be enough oxygen left on this planet. If I fail, you will go in that second room. Select a tool that cuts cables. Take it up to the dream cases by stealth. Start with the unused cases. Cut the cables on every one. Every one. Do you understand?”

“Then I will never find him.”

“That would be a good thing. I do not want to go to Sharan Inly in some other body. I want to go and touch her with this hand, look at her with these eyes. Nothing else is any good.”

“One of those ships … after so many years … it is incredible, Raul.”

“I’ve had the door open. I think I can live out there. Help me. Wait for me here. I must be able to get back inside.
If anyone should come, you must keep them from touching those wheels on the door. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He went to the door and pulled it open. He saw her shrink away from the shrill wind. He lowered his head and plunged out. She pushed the door shut. He stood for a moment, turning his back to the wind, finding out if he could breathe the air. He had to breathe fast and deep. The cold bit into his bones and the sand scoured the naked backs of his hands and his cheeks. He turned and squinted across the dim plain toward the six ships. With the position determined, he walked toward them, leaning into the wind, shielding his eyes with his hand, holding the other hand in his armpit for warmth. As the unprotected hand began to grow numb, he changed hands. He looked again and saw that his hundred steps had carried him off to the left. He corrected his direction and continued on. A hundred steps more. The ships seemed no closer. The next time he looked they were closer. And then, panting with the exertion, he saw new details of their construction. He turned his back to the wind and cried out as he saw his known world far behind him. Taller than the ships, yet dwarfed by the ragged hills behind it, it reached white levels up toward the purpled sky. Blank featureless walls, each level recessed a bit, reaching up to a dizzy height above him.

He fought the desire to return. He went on. Behind him, the wind erased his tracks. The ships grew larger. Their fluted sterns rested on the sand. One of them was canted at a slight angle. Never had he realized their true size, nor their distance from each other. The last hundred feet was the easiest because the nearest ship cut the force of the harsh, steady wind. The sand was piled high in long sharp ridges extending out on either side of the ship. Above him, the bulge of the ship was a dizzy overhang. The surface, though still of shining metal, was pitted and scarred and worn. And there was no way to get into the ship. No way at all. He circled it, almost weeping in frustration. Shining and unclimbable metal. He steadied himself with one hand against it as he clambered awkwardly over the drifts. Both
hands were so numb that he could not feel the texture of the metal against his fingers. He made two complete circuits of the ship. Across the plain the tall white world seemed to watch with silent amusement.

He tripped and fell heavily. His face struck against the side of the ship, half stunning him. He lay, trying to summon up the energy he would need to get back to his feet. The ship was inches from his eyes. He tensed. An angular crack showed in the metal, too straight to be accidental. He sat with spread legs, like a child in a sand pile, and dug with hands that were like clubs. The crack grew, turned into the right angle of what could be a square port. He began to laugh as he dug, chuckling deep in his throat, over the wind-scream.

He stopped digging and patted the ship affectionately, called it words of endearment. And now he felt much warmer. Pleasantly warm.

He fumbled up onto his feet with drunken dignity. Pretty ship. Take him to Earth. See Sharan.

Raul turned. No need to go to Earth after all. There was Sharan, standing there, smiling. She didn’t mind the wind. She was warm too. He advanced toward her and she backed away, teasingly. His feet made no tracks in the sand.

“Sharan!” he bawled hoarsely, his voice lost in the constant wind-shriek. “Sharan!” He lifted his unfeeling legs in a stumbling run. She was still elusive, backing toward the white warm world he had left. He hoped Leesa was watching, so that she could see Sharan too. Now Sharan was gone. He couldn’t find her. He ran on and tripped and fell headlong. He was far too comfortable to get up. Too warm. The sand piled quickly up along his left side, and at last spilled across the back of his neck with a gentle touch that was like a caress.

THIRTEEN

Sharan Inly looked with distaste at the narrow street. The man from the agency pulled up at the curb and stopped. It was dusk and neon was beginning to flicker.

The agency man pointed toward the place called Joe’s Alibi.

“He’ll be in there, miss. Want me to go yank him out? It’s no place for a girl, and he won’t be in any shape to come willingly.”

“I’ll go in,” she said.

“I better come with you then. You’ll need help with him.”

“If you wish,” she said.

The agency man looked at the grubby children nearby, carefully locked the car before crossing the street with her.

They heard hoarse laughter as they crossed the sidewalk. The laughter and the rumble of conversation stopped as Sharan pushed the screen open and walked in. She walked into the room and then turned to the agency man.

“He’s not here,” she said with sinking heart.

“Take a second look, miss,” he said.

She looked at the man at the table. His chair was tilted back against the wall. His chin was on his chest and he was asleep. His gaunt gray face was stubbled with beard and his open collar was soiled.

Sharan went quickly to the table. “Bard!” she cried softly. “Bard!”

“That his name?” the bartender said in the silence. “We call him the perfessor. He’s what you might call a mascot around here. You want him woke up?”

The heavy-shouldered bartender came around the corner of the bar, tilted Bard’s chair forward, caught him on
the front of the stained suit, lifted him effortlessly and slapped his cheek with a full arm swing. It resounded like a pistol shot.

“Take it easy, friend,” the agency man said softly.

Bard opened his eyes owlishly. “Now listen to his act,” the bartender said. “Perfessor! Can you hear me, Perfessor? Tell us about them Martians.”

In a hollow, whisky-hoarse tone, Bard said, “They come to us from a distant planet and take over our souls. They fill our minds with evil and lead us to dark deeds. You never know when they are coming. No one ever knows. We should be on guard.”

“Cute, ain’t he?” the bartender said, grinning.

Sharan curled her fingers and took a half step toward the bartender. “Get away from him,” she whispered.

“Sure, lady. Sure thing. No harm intended.”

Bard found her with his eyes. He frowned. “What do you want?”

“Come with me, Bard.”

“I like it here. Sorry,” he mumbled.

The agency man stepped around her. He caught Bard’s wrist, brought it around and up into the small of Bard’s back. Bard made feeble struggles. The agency man marched him to the door as Sharan followed.

“Take good care of the perfessor, sweetheart,” one of the customers said. Sharan flushed. The room was once again filled with laughter.

She unlocked the car and the agency man edged Bard in onto the seat. As soon as Bard was sitting, he fell asleep again. He was between them as the agency man started the car. “Smells a little strong, don’t he?” the agency man said.

Sharan didn’t answer. The rooming house was in the next block. It was a scabrous building, full of the memories of evil, of the wry ghosts of orgy.

“Second floor front,” the agency man said. He woke Bard up. Bard Lane seemed dazed. There was no more protest in him. Sharan followed them up the stairs, the agency man supporting Bard with an arm around his
waist. The door was unlocked. The room was tiny, shabby, and the hall was sour and dim.

“You want I should stay and help you, lady?” the man asked.

“Thank you. I’ll take it from here on,” she said. “And thank you.”

“All in the day’s work. Be careful. Some of them go a little nutty when you start to wring them out.”

He had collapsed on the narrow bed. He snored. She unlocked the door behind her and took the key. In an hour she was back with a complete set of new clothes that would fit him. She turned on the single light, cleaned up some of the litter in the room. The bath was across the hall. No shower. Just a tub.

His shoes were cracked and broken things that could have come from a trash barrel. He wore no socks. His ankles were grubby. She laid out his shaving things, the new clothes, in the bathroom.

Then came the nightmare of waking him, of seeing the eyes open vague in the gray face. He no longer seemed to know her. She supported more than half his weight getting him across the hall. He could not help himself. He sat on the stool with his back against the wall and let himself be undressed, like a child. Getting him into the tub was a major engineering project, and then she had to wait until the cold water revived him enough so that she could be sure he did not drown. She went out and brought back a quart of hot coffee. He drank it and looked at her with a bit more comprehension.

“Bard! Listen to me. Clean up and get dressed.”

“Sure, sure,” he mumbled.

From time to time she went back to the bathroom door and listened. She heard him splashing, moving around. Later she heard the scrape of a razor. She bundled his old clothes in the plastex wrapper that had been around the new clothes.

At last he came slowly into the room. He sat down quickly, cupped trembling hands over his eyes. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Rotten, Sharan.”

“There’s some coffee beside you. Better have some.” Even with the container held in both hands, some of the hot coffee spilled out onto the back of his hand.

“You didn’t find a very good answer, did you?” she said.

“Is any answer a good one?”

“Giving up isn’t a good answer.”

“Please. Spare me the violin music. I was discarded. It seemed necessary to act the part.”

“Everybody has a streak of martyr, Bard.”

He stared at her. His eyes were hollow, lifeless. “They fixed me good. They tied the can to me, baby. No lab in the country would touch me. You know that. I had some money saved. I was going to show everybody. I interviewed some accident victims—the ones where I suspected Raul and his gang had a part in it. I took a tape recorder. Know the most common expression? ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ they said. I tried to get a newspaper interested. They talked very pleasantly while they sent for the little men with the nets.”

“I read about it, Bard,” she said softly.

“Good article, wasn’t it? Funny as hell.”

“You haven’t been in the news for a month. The public has a short memory. They’ve forgotten you.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“Feel better now?”

He stared at her. “Dr. Inly, the patient refuses treatment. Why don’t you go exercise a few prefrontal lobes or something?”

She smiled at him. “Don’t be childish. Finish the coffee. We’re going to get you a haircut and a steak—in that order.”

His smile was mild acid. “And why do I merit all this attention?”

“Because you are needed. Don’t be defensive, Bard. Just do as I say. I’ll explain later.”

Dusk was over the city and they were in an oak booth
at the back of a quiet restaurant. His eyes were brighter and some of the shakiness had gone out of his hands. He pushed his coffee cup aside, lit her cigarette and his own. “Now it’s time to talk, Sharan.”

“We’ll talk about a mistaken premise, Bard. We assumed that a hypnotic device operated from the other side of this world destroyed the Beatty One. After they delicately told me that I was all through and that I’d be called if there was a vacancy for anyone with my rating, I was … contacted again. With the Beatty One gone, there didn’t seem to be much point in it. I jeered at their fantasy of an alien world. I jeered at our friend, Raul, and at his sister. It took them a long time. I brought Lurdorff in on it. He’s too egocentric to ever doubt his own sanity. And now he believes, too. They’re what they say they are.”

He stared at her without expression. “Go on.”

“Everything he told us appeared to be true. It was the girl who destroyed the ship. She took over the A-six technician named Machielson. She had him overpower the guard. The rest of it went just the way you guessed. Bard, do you remember the time I told you that I wished I could fall in love with you?”

“I remember.”

“Someone else did. The sister. She found out too late. She thought we were figments of her dreams. Now she, like Raul, is convinced that we are reality. The logical processes of most women are rather odd. She and her brother have been helping me look for you. I explained about investigation agencies and how expensive they were. The next day a man stopped me in the street and gave me all of the money out of his wallet and walked on. A second and a third man did the same. That’s the way Raul fixed the money angle. And now we’ve found you.”