The Dream Master

by Roger Zelazny

  So simple even a dog can drive one, he reflected. Better get downstairs before a cruiser comes along. It's probably re­ported itself stopped there already. Maybe not, though. Might still have a few minutes grace.

  He glanced at the huge clock.

  "Okay, Sig," he called out. "Let's go."

  They took the lift to the ground floor, left by way of the front entrance and hurried to the car.

  Its engine was still idling.

  Render opened the passenger door and Sigmund leapt in. He squeezed by him into the driver's seat then, but the dog

  was already pushing the primary coordinates and the address tabs with his paw.

  Looks like I'm in the wrong seat.

  He lit a cigarette as the car swept ahead into a U-under-pass. It emerged on the opposite marginal, sat poised a mo­ment, then joined the traffic flow. The dog directed the car into the high-acceleration lane.

  "Oh," said the dog, "oh."

  Render felt like patting his head at that moment, but he looked at him, saw that his teeth were bared, and decided against it.

  "When did she start acting peculiar?" he asked.

  "Came home from work. Did not eat. Would not answer me, when I talked. Just sits."

  "Has she ever been like this before?"

  "No."

  What could have precipitated it?—But maybe she just had a bad day. After all, he's only a dog—sort of.—No. He'd know. But what, then?

  "How was she yesterday—and when she left home this morning?"

  "Like always."

  Render tried calling her again. There was still no answer.

  "You, did, it," said the dog.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Eyes. Seeing. You. Machine. Bad."

  "No," said Render, and his hand rested on the unit of stun-spray in his pocket.

  "Yes," said the dog, turning to him again. "You will, make her well...?"

  "Of course," said Render.

  Sigmund stared ahead again.

  Render felt physically exhilarated and mentally sluggish. He sought the confusion factor. He had had these feelings about the case since that first session. There was something very unsettling about Eileen Shallot: a combination of high intelligence and helplessness, of determination and vulnera­bility, of sensitivity and bitterness.

  Do I find that especially attractive?—No. It's just the coun­ter-transference, damn it!

  "You smell afraid," said the dog.

  "Then color me afraid," said Render, "and turn the page."

  They slowed for a series of turns, picked up speed again, slowed again, picked up speed again. Finally, they were traveling along a narrow section of roadway through a semi-residential area of town. The car turned up a side street, proceeded about half a mile further, clicked softly beneath its dashboard, and turned into the parking lot behind a high brick apartment building. The click must have been a special servomech which took over from the point where the moni­tor released it, because the car crawled across the lot, headed into its transparent parking stall, then stopped. Render turned off the ignition.

  Sigmund had already opened the door on his side. Ren­der followed him into the building, and they rode the elevator to the fiftieth floor. The dog dashed on ahead up the hall­way, pressed his nose against a plate set low in a doorframe, and waited. After a moment, the door swung several inches inward. He pushed it open with his shoulder and entered. Render followed, closing the door behind him.

  The apartment was large, its walls pretty much un­adorned, its color combinations unnerving. A great library of tapes filled one corner; a monstrous combination-broad­caster stood beside it. There was a wide bowlegged table set in front of the window, and a low couch along the right-hand wall; there was a closed door beside the couch; an archway to the left apparently led to other rooms. Eileen sat in an overstuffed chair in the far corner by the window. Sigmund stood beside the chair.

  Render crossed the room and extracted a cigarette from his case. Snapping open his lighter, he held the flame until her head turned in that direction.

  "Cigarette?" he asked.

  "Charles?"

  "Right."

  "Yes, thank you. I will."

  She held out her hand, accepted the cigarette, put it to her lips.

  "Thanks.—What are you doing here?"

  "Social call. I happened to be in the neighborhood."

  "I didn't hear a buzz, or a knock."

  "You must have been dozing. Sig let me in."

  "Yes, I must have." She stretched. "What time is it?"

  "It's close to four-thirty."

  "I've been home over two hours then... Must have been very tired ..."

  "How do you feel now?"

  "Fine," she declared. "Care for a cup of coffee?"

  "Don't mind if I do."

  "A steak to go with it?"

  "No thanks."

  "Bicardi in the coffee?"

  "Sounds good."

  "Excuse me then. It'll only take a moment."

  She went through the door beside the sofa and Render caught a glimpse of a large, shiny, automatic kitchen.

  "Well?" he whispered to the dog.

  Sigmund shook his head.

  "Not same."

  Render shook his head.

  He deposited his coat on the sofa, folding it carefully about the medkit. He sat beside it and thought.

  Did I throw too big a chunk of seeing at once? Is she suf­fering from depressive side-effects—say, memory repressions, nervous fatigue? Did I upset her sensory adaptation syndrome somehow? Why have I been proceeding so rapidly anyway? There's no real hurry. Am I so damned eager to write the thing up?—Or am I doing it because she wants me to? Could she be that strong, consciously or unconsciously? Or am I that vulnerable—somehow?

  She called him to the kitchen to carry out the tray. He set it on the table and seated himself across from her.

  "Good coffee," he said, burning his lips on the cup.

  "Smart machine," she stated, facing his voice.

  Sigmund stretched out on the carpet next to the table, lowered his head between his forepaws, sighed, and closed his eyes.

  "I've been wondering," said Render, "whether or not there were any aftereffects to that last session—like increased synesthesiac experiences, or dreams involving forms, or hallucin­ations or..."

  "Yes," she said flatly, "dreams."

  "What kind?"

  "That last session. I've dreamt it over, and over."

  "Beginning to end?"

  "No, there's no special order to the events. We're riding through the city, or over the bridge, or sitting at the table, or walking toward the car—just flashes like that. Vivid ones."

  "What sort of feelings accompany these—flashes?"

  "I don't know. They're all mixed up."

  "What are your feelings now, as you recall them."

  "The same, all mixed up."

  "Are you afraid?"

  "N-no. I don't think so."

  "Do you want to take a vacation from the thing? Do you feel we've been proceeding too rapidly?"

  "No. That's not it at all. It's—well, it's like learning to swim. When you finally learn how, why then you swim and you swim and you swim until you're all exhausted. Then you just lie there gasping in the air and remembering what it was like, while your friends all hover and chew you out for overexerting yourself—and it's a good feeling, even though you do take a chill and there's pins and needles inside all your muscles. At least, that's the way I do things. I felt that way after the first session and after this last one. First Times are always very special times... The pins and the needles are gone, though, and I've caught my breath again. Lord, I don't want to stop now! I feel fine."

  "Do you usually take a nap in the afternoon?"

  The ten red nails of her fingernails moved across the table-top as she stretched.

  "... Tired." She smiled, swallowing a yawn. "Half the

  staff's on vacation or sick leave and I've been b
eating my brains out all week. I was about ready to fall on my face when I left work. I feel all right now that I've rested, though."

  She picked up her coffee cup with both hands, took a large swallow.

  "Uh-huh," he said. "Good. I was a bit worried about you. I'm glad to see there was no reason.

  "Worried? You've read Dr. Riscomb's notes on my analy­sis—and on the ONT&R trial—and you think I'm the sort to worry about? Ha! I have an operationally beneficient neurosis concerning my adequacy as a human being. It focuses my energies, coordinates my efforts toward achieve­ment. It enhances my sense of identity ..."

  "You do have one hell of a memory," he noted. "That's almost verbatim."

  "Of course."

  "You had Sigmund worried today, too."

  "Sig? How?"

  The dog stirred uneasily, opened one eye.

  "Yes," he growled, glaring up at Render. "He needs, a ride, home."

  "Have you been driving the car again?"

  "Yes."

  "After I told you not to?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I was a, fraid. You would, not, answer me, when I talked."

  "I was very tired—and if you ever take the car again, I'm going to have the door fixed so you can't come and go as you please."

  "Sorry,"

  "There's nothing wrong with me."

  "I, see."

  "You are never to do it again."

  "Sorry." His eye never left Render; it was like a burning lens.

  Render looked away.

  "Don't be too hard on the poor fellow," he said. "After

  all, he thought you were ill and he went for the doctor. Supposing he'd been right? You'd owe him thanks, not a scolding."

  Unmollified, Sigmund glared a moment longer and closed his eye.

  "He has to be told when he does wrong," she finished.

  "I suppose," he said, drinking his coffee. "No harm done, anyhow. Since I'm here, let's talk shop. I'm writing something and I'd like an opinion."

  "Great. Give me a footnote?"

  "Two or three.—In your opinion, do the general under­lying motivations that lead to suicide differ in different cul­tures?"

  "My well-considered opinion is no, they don't," she said. "Frustrations can lead to depressions or frenzies; and if these are severe enough, they can lead to self-destruction. You ask me about motivations and I think they stay pretty much the same. I feel this is a cross-cultural, cross-temporal aspect of the human condition. I don't think it could be changed without changing the basic nature of man."

  "Okay. Check. Now, what of the inciting element?" he asked. "Let man be a constant, his environment is still a vari­able. If he is placed in an overprotective life-situation, do you feel it would take more or less to depress him—or stimulate him to frenzy—than it would take in a not so protective en­vironment?"

  "Hm. Being case-oriented, I'd say it would depend on the man. But I see what you're driving at: a mass predisposition to jump out windows at the drop of a hat—the window even opening itself for you, because you asked it to—the revolt of the bored masses. I don't like the notion. I hope it's wrong."

  "So do I, but I was thinking of symbolic suicides too-functional disorders that occur for pretty flimsy reasons."

  "Aha! Your lecture last month: autopsychomimesis. I have the tape. Well-told, but I can't agree."

  "Neither can I, now. I'm rewriting that whole section—

  Thanatos in Cloudcuckooland,' I'm calling it. It's really the death-instinct moved nearer the surface."

  "If I get you a scalpel and a cadaver, will you cut out the death-instinct and let me touch it?"

  "Couldn't," he put the grin into his voice, "it would be all used up in a cadaver. Find me a volunteer though, and he'll prove my case by volunteering."

  Tour logic is unassailable." She smiled. "Get us some more coffee, okay?"

  Render went to the kitchen, spiked and filled the cups, drank a glass of water, returned to the living room. Eileen had not moved; neither had Sigmund.

  "What do you do when you're not busy being a Shaper?" she asked him.

  "The same things most people do—eat, drink, sleep, talk, visit friends and not-friends, visit places, read..."

  "Are you a forgiving man?"

  "Sometimes. Why?"

  "Then forgive me. I argued with a woman today, a woman named DeVille."

  "What about?"

  "You—she accused me of such things it were better my mother had not born me. Are you going to marry her?"

  "No, marriage is like alchemy. It served an important purpose once, but I hardly feel it's here to stay."

  "Good."

  "What did you say to her?"

  "I gave her a clinic referral card that said, Diagnosis: Bitch. Prescription: Drug therapy and a tight gag.' "

  "Oh," said Render, showing interest.

  "She tore it up and threw it in my face."

  "I wonder why?"

  She shrugged, smiled, made a gridwork on the tablecloth.

  " 'Fathers and elders, I ponder,' " sighed Render, " 'what is hell?*"

  " 'I maintain it is the suffering of being unable to love,' " she finished. "Was Dostoevsky right?"

  "I doubt it. I'd put him into group therapy, myself.

  That'd be real hell for him—with all those people acting like his characters, and enjoying it so."

  Render put down his cup, pushed his chair away from the table.

  "I suppose you must be going now?"

  "I really should," said Render.

  "And I can't interest you in food?"

  "No."

  She stood.

  "Okay, I'll get my coat."

  "I could drive back myself and just set the car to return."'

  "No! I'm frightened by the notion of empty cars driving around the city. I'd feel the thing was haunted for the next two-and-a-half weeks.

  "Besides," she said, passing through the archway, "you promised me Winchester Cathedral."

  "You want to do it today?"

  "If you can be persuaded."

  As Render stood deciding, Sigmund rose to his feet. He stood directly before him and stared upward into his eyes. He opened his mouth and closed it, several times, but no sounds emerged. Then he turned away and left the room.

  "No," Eileen's voice came back, "you will stay here until I return."

  Render picked up his coat and put it on, stuffing the med-kit into the far pocket.

  As they walked up the hall toward the elevator, Render thought he heard a very faint and very distant howling sound.

  In this place, of all places, Render knew he was the master

  of all things.

  He was at home on those alien worlds, without time, those worlds where flowers copulate and the stars do battle in the heavens, falling at last to the ground, bleeding, like so many split and shattered chalices, and the seas part to reveal stair­ways leading down, and arms emerge from caverns, waving torches that flame like liquid faces—a midwinter night's night-

  mare, summer go a-begging, Render knew—for he had visited those worlds on a professional basis for the better part of a decade. With the crooking of a finger he could isolate the sorcerers, bring them to trial for treason against the realm —aye, and he could execute them, could appoint their suc­cessors.

  Fortunately, this trip was only a courtesy call...

  He moved forward through the glade, seeking her.

  He could feel her awakening presence all about him.

  He pushed through the branches, stood beside the lake. It was cold, blue, and bottomless, the lake, reflecting that slender willow which had become the station of her arrival.

  "Eileen!"

  The willow swayed toward him, swayed away.

  "Eileen! Come forth!"

  Leaves fell, floated upon the lake, disturbed its mirror-like placidity, distorted the reflections.

  "Eileen?"

  All the leaves yellowed at once then, dropped down into
the water. The tree ceased its swaying. There was a strange sound in the darkening sky, like the humming of high wires on a cold day.

  Suddenly there was a double file of moons passing through the heavens.

  Render selected one, reached up and pressed it. The others vanished as he did so, and the world brightened; the hum­ming went out of the air.

  He circled the lake to gain a subjective respite from the rejection-action and his counter to it. He moved up along an aisle of pines toward the place where he wanted the cathedral to occur. Birds sang now in the trees. The wind came softly by him. He felt her presence quite strongly.

  "Here, Eileen. Here."

  She walked beside him then, green silk, hair of bronze, eyes of molten emerald; she wore an emerald in her forehead. She walked in green slippers over the pine needles, saying: "What happened?"

  "You were afraid."

  "Why?"

  "Perhaps you fear the cathedral. Are you a witch?" He smiled.

  "Yes, but it's my day off."

  He laughed, and he took her arm, and they rounded an island of foliage, and there was the cathedral reconstructed on a grassy rise, pushing its way above them and above the trees, climbing into the middle air, breathing out organ notes, reflecting a stray ray of sunlight from a plane of glass.

  "Hold tight to the world," he said. "Here comes the guided tour."

  They moved forward and entered.

  " '... With its floor-to-ceiling shafts, like so many huge treetrunks, it achieves a ruthless control over its spaces,' " he said. "—Got that from the guidebook. This is the north transept..."

  'Greensleeves,' " she said, "the organ is playing 'Green-sleeves.' "

  "So it is. You can't blame me for that though.—Observe the scalloped capitals—"

  "I want to go nearer the music."

  "Very well. This way then."

  Render felt that something was wrong. He could not put his finger on it.

  Everything retained its solidity . ..

  Something passed rapidly then, high above the cathedral, uttering a sonic boom. Render smiled at that, remembering now; it was like a slip of the tongue: for a moment he had confused Eileen with Jill—yes, that was what had happened.

  Why, then...

  A burst of white was the altar. He had never seen it before, anywhere. All the walls were dark and cold about them. Candles flickered in corners and high niches. The organ chorded thunder under invisible hands.