The Dream Master

by Roger Zelazny

  "Does this hurt?"

  "Yes!"

  "This?"

  "Yes! It hurts all over!"

  "How about this?"

  "Along the side... There!"

  Render helped him to his feet, held him balanced on his sound foot, reached for his crutches.

  "Come on. Along with me. Dr. Heydell has a hobby-lab in his apartment, downstairs. That fast-cast is coming off. I want to X-ray the foot again."

  "No! It's not—"

  "What about my coat?" said Jill.

  The buzzer sounded again.

  "Damn everything!" announced Render, and he pushed the call-dot.

  "Yes! Who is it?"

  There came a sound of breathing.

  Then, "Uh, it's me, boss. Did I pick a bad time?"

  "Bennie! No, listen—I didn't mean to snap at you, but all hell's just broken loose. Come on up. By the time you get here things will be normal and unhectic again."

  "... Okay, if you're sure it's all right, that is. I just wanted to stop in for a minute. I'm on my way to some­where else."

  "Sure thing. Here's the door."

  He tapped the other circle.

  "You stay here and let her in, Jill. Well be back in a few minutes."

  "What about my coat? And the sofa... ?"

  "All in good time. Don't worry. C'mon, Pete."

  He guided him out into the hall, where they entered an ele­vator and directed it to the sixth floor. On the way down, their elevator sighed past Bennie's, on its way up.

  The door clicked. Before it could open though, Render pressed the "Hold" button.

  "Peter," he said, "why are you acting like a snotty adoles­cent?"

  Peter wiped his eyes.

  "Hell, I'm pre-puberty," he said, "and as for being snot­ty..."

  He blew his nose.

  Render's hand began to rise, fell back again.

  He sighed.

  "We'll discuss it later."

  He released the "Hold" button and the door slid open.

  Dr. Heydell's suite was located at the end of the corri­dor. A large wreathe of evergreen and pine cones hung upon the door, encircling its brass knocker.

  Render raised the knocker and let it fall.

  From within, there came the faint sounds of Christmas music. After a moment, there was a footfall on the other side, and the door opened.

  Dr. Heydell stood before them, looking up from behind thick glasses.

  "Well, carolers," he announced in a deep voice. "Come in, Charles, and ...."

  "My son, Peter," said Render.

  "Glad to meet you, Peter," said Heydell. "Come in and join the party."

  He drew the door all the way open and stepped aside.

  They entered into a blast of Christmas, and Render ex­plained, "We had a little accident upstairs. Peter's ankle was broken a short time ago, and he fell on it again just now. I'd like to use your X-ray to check it out."

  "Surely," said the small doctor. "Come this way. Sorry to hear about it."

  He led them through his living room, about which seven or eight people were variously situated.

  "Merry Christmas!"

  "Hi there, Charlie!"

  "Merry Christmas, Doc!"

  "How's the brain-cleaning business?"

  Render raised one hand automatically, nodded in four different directions.

  "This is Charles Render. He's in neuroparticipation," Hey­dell explained to the rest, "and this is his son, Peter. We'll be back in a few minutes. Need my lab."

  They passed out of the room, moved two steps into a ves­tibule. Heydell opened the insulated door to his insulated laboratory. The laboratory had cost him considerable time

  and expense. It had required the consent of the local build­ing authorities, it had had to subscribe to more than full hospital shielding standards, and it had required the agree­ment of the apartment management, which in turn had been predicated upon the written consent of all the other tenants. Some of the latter had required economic suasion, Render understood.

  They entered the laboratory, and Heydell set his apparatus in operation. He took the necessary pictures and ran them through the speed-dry, speed-develop process.

  "Good," he announced, as he studied them. "No more damage, and the fracture is healing nicely."

  Render smiled. He noticed that his hands had been shak­ing.

  Heydell slapped him on the shoulder.

  "So come on out and try our punch."

  "Thanks, Heydell. I believe I will." He always called him by his last name, since they were both Charlies.

  They shut down the equipment and left the lab.

  Back in the living room, Render shook a few hands and sat down on the sofa with Peter.

  He sipped his punch, and one of the men he had only just met, a Dr. Minton, began talking to him.

  "So you're a Shaper, eh?"

  "That's right."

  "I've always wondered about that area. We had a bull-session going back at the hospital, just the other week..."

  "Oh?"

  "Our resident psychiatrist mentioned that neuropy treat­ments are no more nor less successful than ordinary thera­peutic courses."

  "I'd hardly consider him in a position to judge—especial­ly if it's Mike Mismire you're talking about, and I think you are.

  Dr. Minton spread his hands, palms upward.

  "He said he's been collecting figures."

  "The change rendered the patient in a neuropy session is a qualitative one. I don't know what he means by 'success-

  ful.' The results are successful if you eliminate the patient's problem. There are various ways of doing it—as many as there are therapists—but neuropy is qualitatively superior to some­thing like psychoanalysis because it produces measurable, organic changes. It operates directly upon the nervous system, beneath a patina of real and simulated afferent im­pulses. It induces desired states of self-awareness and ad­justs the neurological foundation to support them. Psycho­analysis and allied areas are purely functional. The problem is less likely to recur if it is adjusted by neuropy."

  "Then why don't you use it to cure psychotics?"

  "It has been done, a couple times. But it is normally too risky an undertaking. Remember, 'participation' is the key word. Two nervous systems, two minds are involved. It can turn into a reverse-therapy session—anti-neuropy—if the pattern of aberrance is too strong for the operator to con­trol. His state of self-awareness is then altered, his neurological underpinnings are readjusted. He becomes psychotic himself, suffering actual organic brain damage."

  "It would seem that there'd be some way to cut down on that feedback," said Minton.

  "Not yet," Render explained, "there isn't—not without sacrificing some of the operator's effectiveness. They're work­ing on the problem right now in Vienna, but so far the answer seems far away."

  "If you find one you can probably go into the more sig­nificant areas of mental distress," said Minton.

  Render drank his punch. He did not like the stress that the man had laid upon the word 'significant.'

  "In the meantime," said Render, after a moment, "we treat what we can treat in the best way we know, and neuropy is certainly the best means known."

  "There are those who say that you don't really cure neuroses, but cater to them—that you satisfy patients by giving them little worlds all their own to be neurotic in— vacations from reality, places where they're second in com­mand to God."

  "That is not the case," said Render. "The things which oc-

  cur in those little worlds are not necessarily things which please them. They are not near to command at all; the Shaper—or, as you say, God—is. It is a learning experience. You learn by pleasure and you learn by pain. Generally, in these cases, it is more painful than it is pleasurable." He lit a cigarette, accepted another cup of punch.

  "So I do not consider the criticism a valid one," he fin­ished.

  "... And it is quite expensive," said Minton.

&nb
sp; Render shrugged.

  "Did you ever price an Omnichannel Neural Transmission and Receiver outfit?"

  "No."

  "Do it sometime," said Render.

  He listened to a Christmas carol, put out his cigarette, and stood.

  "Thanks a lot, Heydell," he said. "I've got to be going now."

  "What's the hurry?" asked Heydell. "Stay awhile."

  "Like to," said Render, "but there are people upstairs I have to get back to."

  "Oh? Many?"

  "A couple."

  "Bring them down. I was about to set up a buffet, and there's more than enough. I'll feed them and ply them with drinks."

  "Well—" said Render.

  "Fine!" said Heydell. "Why not just call them from here?"

  So he did.

  "Peter's ankle is all right," he said.

  "Great. Now what about my coat?" asked Jill.

  "Forget it for now. I'll take care of it later."

  "I tried some lukewarm water, but it's still pinkish..."

  "Put it back in the box, and don't fool around with it any more! I said I'd take care of it."

  "Okay, okay. We'll be down in a minute. Bennie brought a gift for Peter, and something for you. She's on her way to her sister's place, but she says she's in no hurry."

  "Capital. Drag her down. She knows Heydell." "Fine." She broke the connection.

  Christmas Eve.

  ....he opposite of New Year's:

  It is the personal time, rather than the social time; it is the time of focusing upon self and family, rather than society. It is a time of many things: A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. It is a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted .. .

  They ate from the buffet. Most of them drank the warm Ronrico and cinnamon and cloves and fruit cocktail and ginger-flavored punch. They talked of plastasac lungs and blood screens and diagnosis by computer, and of the worth-lessness of penicillin. Peter sat with his hands folded in his lap: listening, watching. His crutches lay at his feet. Music flooded the room.

  Jill sas listening, also.

  When Render talked everyone listened. Bennie smiled, took another diink. Playboy doctor or not, when Render talked it was with the voice of a disc jockey and the logic of the Jes­uits. Her boss was known. Who knew Minton? Who knew Heydell? Other doctors, that's all. Shapers were big-time, and she was his secretary-receptionist. Everybody knew of the Shapers. There was nothing controversial about being a heart specialist or a bone man, an anesthesiologist or an in­ternal medicine buff. Her boss was her measure of glory. The other girls always asked her about him, about his magic machine... "Electronic Svengalis," that's what Time had called them, and Render had gotten three paia-graphs, two more than any of the others—excepting Baitel-metz, of course.

  The music changed to light classical, to ballet. Bennie felt a year's end nostalgia and she wanted to dance again, as she had once long ago. The season and the company, compounded with the music and the punch and the decoia-tions, made her foot tap, slowly, and turned her mind to

  memories of a spotlight and a stage filled with color and movement and herself. She listened to the talk.

  "... If you can transmit them and receive them, then you can record them, can't you?" Minton was asking.

  "Yes," said Render.

  "That's what I thought. Why don't they write more about that angle of the thing?"

  "Another five or ten years—perhaps less—and they will. Right now though, the use of playback is restricted to qualified personnel."

  "Why?"

  "Well"—Render paused to light another cigarette—"to be completely frank, it is to keep the whole area under con­trol until we know more about it. The thing could be ex­ploited commercially—and perhaps with disastrous results —if it were left wide open."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I could take a fairly stable person and in his mind construct any sort of dream that you could name, and many that you could not—dreams ranging from vio­lence and sex to sadism and perversion—dreams with a plot, like a total-participation story, or dreams which border upon insanity itself: wish-fulfillment dreams on any subject, cast in any manner. I could even pick a visual arts style, from expressionism to surrealism, if you'd like. A dream of violence in a cubist setting? Like that? Great! You could even be the horse of Guernica. I could set it up. I could re­cord the whole thing and play it back to you, or anyone else, any number of times."

  "God!"

  "Yes, God. I could make you God, too, if you'd like that —and I could make the Creation last you a full seven days. I control the time-sense, the internal clock, and I can stretch actual minutes into subjective hours."

  "Sooner or later this thing will happen, won't it?"

  "Yes."

  "What will the results be?"

  "No one really knows."

  "Boss," asked Bennie softly, "could you bring a memory to life again? Could you resurrect something from out of the past and make it live over again in a person's mind, and make it just as though the whole thing was real, all over again?"

  Render bit his lip, stared at her strangely.

  "Yes," he said, after a long pause, "but it wouldn't really be a good thing to do. It would encourage living in the past, which is now a nonexistent time. It would be a detri­ment to mental health. It would encourage regression, re­version, would become another means of neurotic escape into the past."

  The Nutcracker Suite finished, the sounds of Swan Lake filled the room.

  "Still," she said, "I should like so to be the swan again . .."

  She rose slowly and executed a few clumsy steps—a hefty, tipsy swan in a russet dress.

  She flushed then and sat down quickly. Then she laughed and everyone joined her.

  "Where would you like to be?" Minton asked Heydell.

  The small doctor smiled.

  "Back on a certain weekend during the summer of my third year in med school," he said. "Yes, I'd wear out that tape in a week. How about you, son? he asked Peter.

  "I'm too young to have any good memories yet," Peter replied. "What about you, Jill?"

  "I don't know ... I think I'd like being a little girl again," she said, "and having Daddy—I mean, my father—read to me on a Sunday afternoon, in the wintertime."

  She glanced at Render then.

  "And you, Charlie?" she asked. "If you were being un­professional for a moment, what would your moment be?"

  "This one," he said, smiling. "I'm happy right where I am, in the present, where I belong."

  "Are you, are you really?"

  "Yes!" he said, and he took another cup of punch.

  Then he laughed.

  "Yes, I really am."

  A soft snore came from beside him. Bennie had dozed off.

  And the music went round and round, and Jill looked from father to son and back again. Render had replaced the fast-cast on Peter's ankle. The boy was yawning now. She studied him. What would he be in ten years? Or fifteen? A burnt-out prodigy? Master of some as yet unexploited quantity?

  She studied Peter, who was watching his father.

  "... But it could be a genuine art form," Minton was saying, "and I don't see how censorship..."

  She studied Render.

  "... A man does not have a right to be insane," he was saying, "any more than he has a right to commit suicide..."

  She touched his hand and he jumped, as though awakened from a doze, jerking his hand away.

  "I'm getting tired," she said. "Would you take me home now?"

  "In a while," he replied, nodding. "Let's let Bennie catch a little more shuteye first, though," and he turned back to Minton.

  Peter turned to her and smiled.

  Suddenly, she was really very tired.

  Always before, she had liked Christmas.

  Across from her, Bennie continued to snore, a faint smile occasionally flickering across her features.

  Somewhere, she was dancin
g.

  Somewhere, a man named Pierre was screaming, possibly because he was no longer a man named Pierre.

  Me? I'm Vital, like it says in Time, your weekly. Move

  in for a close pan-shot, Charlie. No, don't you pan! My pan. See? There. The expression always comes to the man on the cover after he's read the article behind the cover. It's too late then, though. Well, they mean well, but you know... Send a boy to bring me a pitcher of water and a basin, okay? 'Death of the Bit,' that's what they called it. Said

  a man could work the same bit for years, moving about a vast and complex sociological structure known as 'the cir­cuit,' and letting the thing fall upon new and virgin ears on each occasion. Oh, living death! Worldwide telecommuni­cations pushed this wheelchair downhill countless elections ago. It bounces now among the rocks of Limbo. We are come upon a new and glorious and vital era... . So, all you people out there in Helsinki and Tierra del Fuego, tell me if you've heard this one before: It concerns an old-time comic with what they called a "bit." One night he did a broadcast performance, and as was his wont he did his bit. Good and pat and solid was his bit, and full of point, balance, and antithesis. Unfortunately, he was out of a job after that, because everyone then knew this bit. Despairing, scraping himself with potsherds, he mounted the rail of the nearest bridge. About to cast himself down into the dark and flowing death-symbol below, he was suddenly halted by a voice. 'Do not cast yourself down into the dark and flow­ing death-symbol below,' said the voice. 'Throw away your potsherds and come down from that rail.' Turning about, he saw a strange creature—that is to say, ugly—all in white, regarding him with a near-toothless smile. 'Who are you, oh strange, smiling creature all in white?' he asked. 'I am an Angel of Light,' she replied, 'and I am come to stop you from killing yourself.' He shook his head. 'Alas,' said he, "but I must kill myself, for my bit is all used up.' Then she raised a palm, thus... 'Despair not,' she said. 'Despair not, for we Angels of Light can work miracles. I can render unto thee more bits than can possibly be used in the brief, wearisome span of mortal existence.' Then, 'Pray,' said he, 'tell me what I must do to effect this miraculous occurrence.' —'Sleep with me,' replied the Angel of Light. 'Is this not somewhat irregular and unangelic?' he asked. 'Not at all,' said she. 'Read the Old Testament carefully and you will be surprised at what you learn of angelic relations.' —'Very well,' he agreed, throwing away his potsherds. And they went away and he did his other bit, despite the fact that she was scarcely the most comely among the Daugh-