The Dream Voyagers

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Westgate,” she replied, naming the nice development that bordered the tenement area where she lived. It was only by dint of a shadowy school borderline and her own excellent grades that Consuela was permitted to go to the Nathan Henry High School at all.

  “Nice,” he said approvingly. “I live in Northside.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. Sally again. Her friend was a font of useful information.

  For reasons Consuela could not understand, Sally had adopted her the first day of school. Sally was everything Consuela was not—vivacious, eager, happy, lighthearted. Her father was a doctor, her mother a dedicated nurse.

  Sally had insisted that they try out for the cheerleading squad together. Consuela had agreed with her plan that either they would both be accepted or neither would join. Consuela had seen it as the perfect out; she had known there was no chance she would be accepted. When they both were selected, she found herself unable to back out, and then to her surprise found that she really enjoyed it. Yes, it was silly. But all kinds of people suddenly said hello to her in the halls, and she was accepted into a group of girls that she would never have dared speak with before.

  And now a date with Rick. It was all happening so fast.

  ****

  Rick was finding the night to be very rough going.

  He was not used to having to work so hard. He was not used to having to force anything. Girls normally gushed over him. All he had to do was go with the flow. But not Consuela.

  Whatever else this girl was, she was no conversationalist. As a matter of fact, Rick was not really sure why he had asked her out in the first place. Maybe it was the mystery that hung in the air around her like a veil. Yeah, that was probably it. Consuela had something about her that made her stand out from the other girls at school.

  When they finally reached the head of the line, Rick let her slide into the roller coaster’s padded seat first so he could watch her reaction. Most girls showed some kind of nerves. But not Consuela. She looked about and revealed nothing more than a sort of mild curiosity. Rick slid into the seat beside her and wondered if maybe the whole date was a total loss.

  The car started off to a chorus of screams. Consuela’s eyes widened slightly as they began to climb. The wind caught her long dark hair and tossed it so that it was flung into his face. She pulled it back. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. Have you been on this one before?”

  She hesitated, then replied, “I’ve never been on a roller coaster in my life.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Why would I kid you about something like that?” She seemed oblivious to the shouts and squeals rising before and behind them as the climb continued up above the entire carnival.

  “I mean, aren’t you a little scared?”

  “Of what?” She seemed truly baffled by his question.

  But before he could reply, they crested the ridge and plunged down. Rick cast a quick glance her way and was somehow extremely pleased to see her smile. For reasons he could not explain, it really mattered to him that he break through that impenetrable shell of hers. Then he turned back and gave in to the thrill of a three-second free fall.

  A swoop at the bottom, an impossibly sharp curve, an upside-down loop, and then into the tunnel. Blackness surrounded them, and the air was filled with the sound of semi-fake fear. Then came the rush out of the tunnel, screaming around the final bend, and braking to a halt.

  “Want to go again?” Rick asked, only half joking, his eyes still adjusting to the flashing lights. He turned to the seat beside him and felt his entire body go cold.

  Consuela was no longer there.

  Chapter Two

  Wander sat on what he thought of as his own little mound and readied for the next two-minute countdown. No one else ever came out here, especially at night, so he was safe in laying claim to this spot. Certainly no one from the port came this way. All the roads led back in the other direction, toward the city. The unfortunates who lived in the hovels beyond the woods considered the area to be haunted.

  Before him the water reservoir lay frozen solid and frosted with snow. Wander liked watching the seasons reflect the power of a launch. In summer the lake reflected launches in mirror stillness, as though a second ship was being fired toward the center of the earth. In winter the ice sparkled blue and alien with discharged kinetic energy.

  Wander had been coming here since he had learned to walk, drawn by the voices and the power that he then thought everyone could hear. Now he knew better and was learning to live with the loneliness that his special abilities created.

  Suddenly he sensed that he was no longer alone.

  He whirled and found himself facing a girl. A beautiful girl. Dark hair, sharply defined features, tall and poised, with dark wide-open eyes. Eyes that spoke of total incomprehension.

  And she wore a scout’s robes.

  She looked at him with a gaze that only half saw, and asked, “Where am I?”

  He had to laugh. For a scout to ask that question was just too funny. Then he remembered something from the morning’s class. “You’re the newcomer, aren’t you?”

  “What?” She gave another start as she looked down at herself, lifted one fold of palest blue, and asked, “Am I dreaming?”

  “The mind-lag must have hit you really hard,” Wander said sympathetically. “I hear it can be rough the first few times you make a jump.” He hesitated, then made the embarrassed confession, “I’ve never been off-world before, so I wouldn’t know.”

  The girl made a genuine effort to draw him into focus. “Who are you?”

  “Wander. I’m in your scout class,” he said patiently. “That is, if you’re the newcomer. Where are you from?”

  “Baltimore,” she replied, looking down at her robes again.

  “Never heard of it,” he said, “but there are so many worlds, I guess that’s no surprise.”

  “So many what?” Then the ship’s pilot droned the formal two-minute warning, and the girl gave a little gasp and jumped a good foot off the snow. “What was that?”

  Wander stared at her. “You heard it?”

  She was still searching the surrounding fields. “Heard what?”

  “They said the newcomer was supposed to be really something. I guess you’d have to be, if they let you skip the first cull.” He slid over, trembling in the excitement of suddenly not being the only one. The odd boy out. The lonely kid who heard what others refused to believe truly existed. “Come sit down. The show’s starting.”

  In dazed confusion, the girl walked over and sat beside him. Then the first hazy impressions of the gravity net appeared about the ship, and she cried aloud.

  Ninety seconds, came the pilot’s drone, and again she gasped, and Wander felt a chill go through his entire frame. She had indeed heard it.

  The icy landscape spreading out before them began to pick up the energy discharge caused by the ship’s thrusters straining against the shield’s gravity net. Wander risked a glance her way, saw eyes impossibly wide and a slightly opened mouth, and suddenly realized she had never seen a launch before.

  He raised his hand and said quietly, “Look at this.” With a gentle loose-limbed motion, he extended his arm and flung his hand outward. A cloud of bluish energy wafted out and over the lake. He turned back and was rewarded with a look of utter disbelief. But no fear. Wander was sure of it without really understanding why. Although the scene was utterly new, the girl showed no fear.

  He turned back, unable to stop grinning, and waited for the launch to continue. For some reason, having her here beside him made it feel as though he were seeing it all for the very first time.

  She gasped when the first tendrils of snow lifted from the field and began their ghostly dance. As the energy friction grew in power, breaths of azure light passed from one dancing cloud to the next, and the entire frozen vista glowed as though lit from beneath.

  Then the fifteen-second interval was marked, and time began to stretch, and t
he girl reached over and took his hand. Wander could scarcely believe it was happening, nor understand what it meant, that here beside him sat another person who required neither headset nor amplifier to tie into the moment of transition. The moment stretched out, granting him the thrill that he had known a hundred thousand times and never tired of, feeling his body count the normal seconds while his mind was let loose to know an endless instant’s freedom.

  Almost.

  Perhaps it was because of the training he had begun. Perhaps it was the heightened sensitivity he felt, having this girl seated beside him holding his hand. Whatever the reason, Wander found himself able to search out the niggling impression that he had always known but not identified. The moment of blissfully being freed from time’s chains was not complete. The bonds were stretched, but not broken. Yet his heart yearned for something more, and in that stretched instant of heightened awareness, Wander knew that a true freedom was possible. He knew it.

  Then the swirling lightning-flecked clouds opened to reveal the maw of nothingness, and in his heightened time-sense Wander watched the gravity-net dissolve, permitting the ship’s thruster to rise from the shield, a brilliant ball of pulsating force, transforming the vessel into a lance of molten gold that stretched higher and higher and higher into the maw, through the infinite nothingness, to touch the shield at its final destination, for a moment shorter than the smallest measurement of earthly time resting on both planets simultaneously. Then the ship departed, the maw closed, the energy dissipated, the snow flurries settled, time returned to its normal boundaries, and the night drew in about them.

  It was a very long moment before the girl took a ragged breath and sighed, “Wow.”

  The feeling was so glorious Wander felt free to say anything he wanted. His own shackles of shyness were momentarily gone. “That was your first launch, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Her response was a breath, a cloud of sweet air wafted out so softly he could barely hear it.

  “I’m glad I could share it with you.” He looked down to his hand, which still held hers, wishing it could stay there forever, knowing she would come alert in a moment and take it back.

  She looked about, then called to the night, “Rick?”

  “We’re alone,” Wander replied. “Nobody comes here. If any of the other scouts heard we did this, they’d scorn us.”

  “The other what?” Still she searched around her. “Have you seen a carnival around here?”

  “There are no people around here,” he replied questioningly. “There haven’t been since the port became operational.” He examined her face. “The mind-lag really has affected you, hasn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” she sighed, then shivered. “It’s cold.”

  “Is it not winter where you came from?”

  She shook her head. “Autumn.”

  “Here spring is less than two months away. This is the time of the hardest frost. What is your name?”

  “Consuela.”

  When she shivered again, he stood and said, “We’d better go back. I’ll have just enough time to help you find your quarters before I go on watch.”

  Consuela rose unsteadily to her feet, but did not release his hand. “Where did you say we were?”

  He gave her slender fingers a gentle squeeze and said quietly, “Come on, try and walk a little faster. Everything is going to be all right.”

  Chapter Three

  “Gone? Whaddaya mean, gone?” The carnival manager was a fleshy jowled, cigar-chomping little man in his late fifties. His office smelled of ashes and burnt coffee and old sweat. “Nobody can get outta those seats when the ride’s going. You saw that padded bar. We had it specially made. It goes down automatic, stays down ’til the ride stops. You can’t stand up, much less get out.” He leaned heavy forearms on the paper-strewn desk. “You trying to make trouble?”

  Rick drew himself up to full height. “Of course not.”

  “You look like a trouble-making punk to me.”

  “Look,” Rick protested, “I’m telling you the truth. She did get out. In the tunnel.”

  “Sure, sure.” Thick, rubbery lips sneered around the mangled cigar. “She dumped you, so you gotta come in here and give me a hard time.”

  “Now look. I’m Rick—”

  “I know who you are. I seen you and punks like you all my life.” The sneer turned ugly. “You don’t get outta here, I’m calling the cops and let them search those fancy pants pockets of yours. See what it is you got in there, find out how you got the money to buy them clothes.” The man half rose from his chair and pointed one stubby finger at the door. “It ain’t enough you gotta come around here selling your stuff. Now you wanna give me trouble? Go on, get outta here, or I’ll show you what real trouble is.”

  Fuming with rage and embarrassment, Rick stumbled out the door and down the rotting stairs. He walked across the mushy ground lining the back sides of the tents, following the path around to where it intersected the central grounds.

  The carnival was winding down. People wandered in little clusters, their gaiety sounding forced and tired, like revelers who refused to leave a party that was already over. Rick walked under the garish lights, searching for a girl he no longer believed he would find, feeling like an idiot.

  The carnival manager was right, he knew it in his gut. Consuela had made a fool of him. She was probably already back in her bed, giggling into her pillow at how silly she had made him look. Three solid hours he had searched the grounds, until his third argument with the roller coaster operator forced the harried man to send him back to the manager’s office. Rick kicked angrily at an empty popcorn box, wheeled about, and headed for the exit. He had never been so humiliated in his life.

  He took his anger out on the car, pushing the massive engine up to redline, taking turns in full four-wheel squeals, hitting insane speeds on the straights. It was not until he pulled into the driveway that he realized just how crazy he had been. He cut off the motor, sat in the car listening to the engine clink, and felt his anger give way to the same shaky nerves that always followed his outbursts. What if the cops had picked him up? What if his parents had been called down to the station to bail him out? What if he had wrecked and been injured, couldn’t play ball, lost the scholarship, lost the good life?

  The good life. That was his dad’s expression. Rick sat in the car and heard the words echo through his brain. “You’re destined for the good life, son. You’ve got it all. Looks, brains, build, backing. Just remember how lucky you are and behave. Make us proud.”

  Make them proud. He heard them say that endlessly, even when they didn’t really say anything at all. It was with him all the time. Their expectations were constantly pushing him to strive, work, measure up, achieve.

  Rick left the car and walked up the cobblestone path, climbed the wide brick stairs, passed under the tall two-story columns, unlocked the door, entered the front hall, fingered the code into the alarm system, heard the safety peep, and turned on the lights. His parents weren’t back yet. They seldom were in before him on the weekends. They were local movers and shakers and were invited everywhere. Friday afternoons were times to avoid being at home. His mother was always in a whirlwind of frantic preparations, shouting orders to anyone who came within reach. His dad would rush in from work, shout back, change clothes, and then together they would put on their polished outside masks and leave.

  As usual, Rick tried to make it down the domed entrance hall without giving the full-size family portrait a glance. He hated that painting. Rick stood between his seated parents, an arm on each of their shoulders, his number one fake grin firmly in place. The perfect son. Never any trouble to his folks, always tops at whatever he did, always polite around his parents’ friends, always popular, always successful. Always measuring up.

  His room had one wall of shelves, all filled with trophies. The maid had strict instructions to polish everything once a week, more often if they were entertaining. His dad liked to bring his cronie
s up, show off everything, point to the school banners he had ordered Rick to nail onto the wall—all the schools that had offered him a full scholarship. Sometimes when he had to stand there and listen to his dad boast, Rick felt as though he himself were just another trophy.

  Not bothering to take off his clothes, Rick stretched out on his bed. His anger at Consuela was giving way to bafflement. Why would she go to all that trouble? Had she accepted the date just to make a fool of him? He went back over the evening in his head, but recalled nothing that might hint at sarcasm or derision. No, Consuela was not the type to make fun of somebody—at least, he didn’t think so.

  He checked his watch, decided it didn’t matter whom he woke up, and reached for his phone. He called directory assistance, asked if there was a listing for Consuela Ortez, and struck out. She did not have her own phone. He went back downstairs, checked the directory, and found over twenty Ortez families listed, none of them living on a street that he recognized as being in Westgate. He checked his watch. After one. Too late to start calling around at random.

  Rick walked back upstairs, debating which of the girls on the cheerleading squad he should call the next morning. He just needed a reason, something that would throw them off the track, and not leave them thinking that one of their friends had made him look like a fool.

  ****

  The port building gleamed silver and yellow in the night. It was utterly lacking in corners; the walls curved and flowed like great metal ribbons, one stacked upon the other, crowned by a vast circular copper dome. Balls of light suspended high overhead splashed the entire area with radiance almost as strong as day. Wander walked beside Consuela and watched her examine everything with wide-eyed wonderment. The robotaxis, the automated street cleaner, the bulbous freight carriers, the vast stretches of almost empty parking for ground cars—everything was new to her. Twice she stumbled and would have fallen save for the grip she kept on his hand, once when a hovercraft alighted, and once when a senior cargo captain passed them with a perfunctory salute. Wander saw the questions in her eyes and had a thousand questions of his own, but for the moment was content to walk alongside this remarkable girl and feel her soft hand cling to his.