Dream thief

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  "Who disturbs our rest at this late hour?" Black eyes glittering in the light glanced quickly at each of them in turn.

  "Please, sir. We seek refuge behind your walls. Our friend is hurt. May we come in?"

  There was a slight hesitation and then the door was thrown open wide, revealing a small man with a smooth bald head which gleamed in the moonlight. "You are welcome, friends. How can I help you?"

  As soon as Kyr was moved inside Adjani whirled to the door and shut it, throwing the bolt. Their host narrowed his eyes and looked sharply at his guests.

  Spence saw the look and said, "We mean you no harm, sir, We won't trouble you further."

  "I am Devi, dean of the seminary. I was just on my way to my quarters when I heard you knocking on the gate. Are you in trouble?"

  "We were traveling on the road earlier," said Adjani. "We camped in the forest."

  "Wild animals found us and pursued us," said Gita, his eyes big with fright. "We came here, Your Eminence."

  Devi laughed. "You have had a time of it, yes; I can see that. Now about your friend." He bent to examine the Martian.

  Spence quickly turned to hide the alien's features. "He'll be all right. He fell. We had to carry him. I think he's coming out of it."

  Devi nodded. "I won't pry. Your secrets are safe with me. Wild animals have been known to wander nearby in these forests, though it has been a long time since anyone saw a lion or tiger. But we'll let that keep for now." He smiled and Spence saw his bald head bob. "Now you'll want to lie down and rest, I think."

  "We don't want to put you to any trouble, sir," said Adjani.

  "Oh, no trouble. I am only sorry I do not have beds to offer you; they are all full. But follow me-I will find something."

  He turned and led them across the courtyard toward the main building of the complex. Their steps echoed faintly on the stone walk. They moved cautiously, peering into the sky for the dreaded shapes. But the sky was clear and bright and the moon fair. Not a sign of the demons could be seen.

  24

  …

  KVALNIKOV LOWERED HIMSELF CAREFULLY through the man-sized hole in the lower deck beneath the docking bay staging area. The hole was made for more standard-sized spacemen, not Russian giants, and Kalnikov was a husky giant at that, so he had to squeeze his shoulders through carefully in order to keep from getting stuck. Once through, he dropped down a short ladder and made his way through a junction tube to the maintenance room that he and Packer had made their home, war room, and base of operations for the coming revolution.

  He entered the room, filled with cylinders and hydraulic hoses and the electronic servo boxes which operated them. Packer sat hunched over a small console at a tiny table in the cramped room, his face green in the reflected light from the screen he stared into.

  "How goes it, friend? Progress?"

  "Hmph. It's enough that you give me obsolete tools to work with-you expect progress, too?"

  "You are getting to be a very disagreeable fellow, Packer. But I don't mind," the Russian said cheerily. Packer looked away from the screen at his companion and noticed a definite change in the man's appearance-he seemed buoyant, full of smiles and winks.

  "Have you been drinking?"

  "No, I have news."

  "What is it?"

  "First, you must tell me how you are coming on your little project there."

  Packer frowned. In the last several days-or was it weeks?he had not stirred out of their prison. For most of that time he had been sitting before the small screen staring at green phosphorescent blips and scrambled letters and numbers. MIRA was a tough old girl to crack, and he had only the tools of a fourth-form schoolboy to do it with.

  They had decided to risk tapping MIRA's data bank to monitor the flow of information between the administration and security offices-between Wermeyer and Ramm. To do that they needed a terminal and a hook-in that would not be noticed when engaged. Kalnikov had scrounged an old manual keyboard model from a dusty corner somewhere and put Packer to work. He had been working constantly ever since.

  "I am becoming permanently hunchbacked," said Packer. "That's how I'm coming. As for the project, well, who knows? Tomorrow or maybe the next day. It's too early to tell. MIRA's got a thick shell, tough as armor. And there's only so much this kiddie computer can do." He paused and dismissed the machine with a wave of his hand, and then continued.

  "But I've organized fifteen of my best third-year men into teams. We've split the program into five parts and each team is working on a portion of the key. Right now, I'm merely trying to juice up our system here to handle the sneak feed once we're on line."

  "Then we are in?"

  "Not yet. Soon though. I've been able to worm in using the autohydraulic servo connect lines and I've reversed a couple of them without anyone noticing so far. There may be a red light blinking somewhere that someone may notice, but we'll have to chance it. There's still a way to go yet,"

  "When?" asked Kalnikov, crossing his great arms across his wide chest.

  "Like I said, soon-tomorrow or the next day. Maybe longer. The problem is that the best program engineers in the world put in state-of-the-art worm traps. Sliding into the data core means outsmarting the traps and that's next to impossible. It would probably be easier to put your ear to the keyhole and listen that way."

  The Russian was unimpressed. "It can be done. Anything one man can do, another can undo."

  "Thanks for the encouragement."

  "But it must be done by tonight."

  "What? Now wait a minute-" Packer leaped from his seat and sent his chair crashing backwards to the floor.

  "Restrain yourself, please. We need to be on line by tonight.

  I have received word through the network that messages have been received this morning."

  "Messages from who?"

  "It is all in code. We don't know. But the effect has been to increase the effort to find us and to expose the network."

  "Oh, great."

  "Time is growing short. Something is about to happen and they want us safely out of the way before it does. We need all the advance warning we can get. We must get into MIRA's datafiles and read those signals-and any more that come through."

  "They're really upset, huh?" Packer raised his eyes upward.

  "They are even sniffling out the ventilation systems-they say there is a chemical leak from sanitation and traces of cyanide were found in the air. It is just an excuse, of course, so people will not become alarmed."

  "Then it's only a matter of time before they flush us out of here."

  "I am taking care of that. I am in contact with my second-incommand. He is with us. He will either disrupt the search of the docking bay, or he will obstruct it in some way. We don't need to worry yet. Anyway, he will be able to warn us. But about tonight

  11

  Packer sighed. "I'll do what I can. We're all exhausted. We've been working at this round the clock."

  "Do _your best, comrade. Soon your work will be rewarded." Kalnikov turned to leave.

  "It's coming down soon, isn't it? How long do we have?"

  "Within the next forty-eight hours, perhaps sooner. Take heart, my friend. Soon you will be a free man again." The big pilot stomped off humming a vaguely martial melody.

  "Yes," muttered Packer, "one way or another I'll be a free man." Then he returned to his keyboard and tapped in an exhortation to his team of code-cracking worm masters and asked for a progress report. That done, he settled himself back to work once more. …

  AUGUST ZANDERSON STOOD IN the dark. Evening had deepened around him as he waited, motionless, like a stone image of a man awaiting the summons that would call it to life.

  Nearby he heard the gentle rise and fall of Ari's breathing, sounding like the shallow wash of sea upon the sand heard from afar. Upon returning from her last encounter with Hocking drowsy and incoherent, she had lapsed into a deathlike sleep. Her father had stood over her watching until darkness removed her from his sight. Now
he listened to her breathing, clenching and unclenching his fists while alternately cursing and praying for her recovery.

  After a while he became aware of voices in the courtyard below. The hushed sounds drifted up through the open balcony doorway. Stirring himself he stepped woodenly onto the balcony to peer into the darkened space below. He heard the rush of feet hurrying away to some other part of the palace and then all was still again.

  He turned to go back to his sentinel's post near his daughter and as he did so he glimpsed, black against a lighter sky, the passing of several large, ill-defined shapes winging over the palace toward the lower slopes.

  A feeling of dread accompanied the passing of the eerie shapes. Zanderson shivered involuntarily and moved back inside. …

  "ALL WE WANT IS a bed for the night," said Spence. "We'll be gone in the morning."

  "Please, you may stay as long as you wish. Until you are rested and your friend is able to travel again, do not even think of leaving. You are safe here and most welcome. We are a poor seminary, and our students are poor, but we are rich in the Spirit and a great wealth of grace is ours. What we have we will share with you gladly."

  Spence was about to protest, but Adjani cut him off saying, "We are most honored, Dean Devi. Of course, we will stay as long as is necessary. Your hospitality is most welcome."

  Devi's smile was warm and pleased. He turned to the door of the chapel and opened it and led them in. It was dark and warm inside and smelled slightly musty with age-like an old library or museum, thought Spence. The scent was not disagreeable at all; rather it made him feel secure, as if he had stepped into a safe harborage well out of reach of the world's blasts and alarms. This, then, was what the ancients meant by sanctuary. Here on this holy ground nothing could harm him. He was safe and at peace.

  At once he felt the weight of care roll off his shoulders.

  He looked around at the high-vaulted ceilings, barely outlined in the soft light of candles burning in great iron holders in the front of the sanctuary.

  "Yes, this place is very old, and most holy." Devi spoke in hushed tones.

  As he spoke, Spence became aware of the presence of others in the chapel. He had thought they were alone, but realized, as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, that there were several figures silently bent over something at the front of the chapel. "Are we disturbing something?" He indicated the figures.

  "Not at all. Let us make your friend comfortable and I will tell you about them." He nodded toward the figures outlined in candlelight.

  Kyr had recovered enough to move under his own power, but still seemed not to know where he was or what was happening to him. Adjani, who had been supporting him, laid him down in a nearby pew, propped his head on a cushion and spread the blanket over him which Devi had provided. Gita lay down at the other end of the pew and both were soon sleeping peacefully.

  "I think he's going to be all right," whispered Adjani as he joined Devi and Spence. Both Spence and Adjani had been careful to keep Kyr in the shadows as much as possible so as not to alarm their host with the alien's presence-it would have been very difficult to explain, after all. With him now resting safely in the pew both men breathed a sigh of relief. Their secret was safe a little while longer.

  Devi motioned them away to a place where they could talk more freely without disturbing the sleeping men. Spence looked at the kneeling figures; he could see them clearly now, bowed over the image of a cross set in white stones in a mosaic on the floor.

  "They are the Friends of Intercession," said Devi. "They are observing their office of prayer."

  "Friends of Intercession? A holy order?"

  "Yes, but not the way you mean. It is a society, but anyone may join. We are all members here at the seminary. It was given its modern name by a professor we had here many years ago-an American like yourself. He had a daughter, a little girl, who was taken ill and nearly died, I believe. They held a prayer vigil for many weeks and she eventually recovered. He attributed her deliverance to our intercession and gave us the name, though that, as I say, was before my time."

  "They've been praying ever since?"

  "Oh, yes, and before-long before. The practice goes back many centuries. I told you this place was very old. Tradition has it that it is founded on the exact spot of the first Christian church ill India. This chapel rests on the foundations of that first church.

  St. Timothy himself is said to have visited this place, it is that old. The apostles spread the new faith to the ends of the Earth in accordance with the Lord's Great Commission. Their seed found fertile soil here and took root.

  "From the beginning this has been a place of prayer. We observe this most venerable and holy rite in our turn as the others did in theirs. It stretches back through time in an unbroken chain, spanning the years, joining us to the very first believers."

  As Devi spoke, the door to the chapel opened and a lone figure slipped in and took its place at the front of the sanctuary, replacing one of the members of the little group who then got up and left just as quietly.

  "So it goes on," observed Devi. "Sometimes in large groups, or small; sometimes a lone student or faculty member kneeling silently. They come to pray and stay until someone else comes to take their place. The chain stretches on-forged a link at a time."

  Spence was overwhelmed by the enduring devotion of the society. He had never heard of such a thing, and could scarcely comprehend such selfless pity. The quiet, fierce discipline of the Friends of Intercession left him almost speechless. "What do they pray for?" he asked, embarrassed at once by the crudeness of his question.

  "They pray for whatever the Spirit lays upon their hearts. But always for love, wisdom, and the strength to do God's will, and also for his presence to be manifest in the world. We pray that the Lord will come in glory, and for the Father to deliver all men from the evil one. As the name suggests, we intercede for all mankind before the Throne of Light."

  They talked a little longer and then Devi left them to their rest. Spence crawled into his berth in a nearby pew, one thought uppermost in his mind: it must have been Ari's mother. That sick child whose illness had galvanized the seminary into organizing the society that continued its vigil of prayer even to this day. Indeed, who else could it have been? Had she paid some price with her broken life? Had her suffering purchased some measure of grace that he now could draw on in his time of need? Even as he held the thought he remembered One whose sacrifice had paid an ultimate price for all of them.

  Strange, the economy of heaven, thought Spence. He had the undeniable feeling that somehow, beyond mortal reckoning, an order, a fine symmetry reigned that counted him and the mad Caroline Zanderson in its balance, and linked them in its accounting together with the all-but-forgotten seminary with its humble students kneeling obediently in endless prayer. Against what? The Dream Thief? Perhaps unknowingly, but also against the greater darkness of evil that gathered over the face of the Earth, the vast unreason that threatened always to extinguish the light, but could not.

  And why not? Because a tiny society, together with all the other small and seemingly insignificant ones the world over, held fast to the flame, keeping it safe within the strong fortress of its devotion-even in the midst of the enemy's own camp.

  Strange, the economy of heaven. …

  THEY LEFT EARLY THE next morning before anyone else was astir. No one, not even the three kneeling over the inlaid cross at the front of the sanctuary, saw them go. Kyr appeared to have fully recovered from the aftereffects of the sonic blast that had stunned him. He walked across the seminary courtyard in the silver light of dawn easily and swiftly with Gita, a short pudgy shadow, by his side.

  Spence lifted the wooden latch, pushed open the gate, and stepped out to face the world once more. He felt rested and calm, as if he had been given some deep assurance that his restless groping in the darkness was not in vain. He sensed within him the tiny pricking sensation that quickened the heart and keened the senses, that told
of a new awareness of purpose. The night spent in the seminary had been a healing interlude, a blessed convalescence that he badly needed.

  Without speaking they retraced their hurried steps of the night before, working back to the place where they had camped. By the time the sun had risen in the treetops they were standing once more at the site of their campfire, now cold ashes in a blackened ring. There was silence all around as they stared across the nearby forest clearing. Kyr's spacecraft was gone.

  25

  …

  HOCKING SWEPT NOISELESSLY INTO the murky chamber. Clouds of incense rolled before him and scuttled away as he passed. Ortu sat immobile on his platform of cushions, head upon his chest, long arms resting on his knees. It was the same energy-preserving position Hocking had always seen him in as long as he could remember. The ancient Martian rarely moved.

  But the old head rose as Hocking drew nearer. "What is it?" demanded Ortu. "What do you want? I have not summoned _you."

  "I saw the naga return. What news did they bring?"

  There was an edge to his underling's voice that Ortu had not heard before. He glared back at Hocking and said, "I will tell you when I choose."

  "You will tell me now," said Hocking evenly.

  The great yellow eyes flared open and focused intently on the object before them. "You dare to question me?"

  "I am tired of playing the obedient servant, Ortu. From now on we will act as equals-"

  "Equals! Never!"

  "As equals, Ortu. I have suffered your caprices long enough. For years I have waited in your shadow, but no more."

  "Get out of here, you fool. Remove yourself from my sight. You are drunk on your own dreams of power. I alone say what will be and when." The kastak flared and subsided into a steady purple glow.

  "Not any more, Ortu. I have dreams of power, yes, and ambitions of my own that you know nothing about. Some of then I have already begun to put into action, while you sit by and do nothing."