Perilous Dreams

by Andre Norton

  There was a thick silence here, not a single sound came from without, though the Hive was crowded. Again the dreamer must be able to study undisturbed by anything outside her own cubicle. Probably they did not find silence oppressive. To them dreaming was life and the world outside those they themselves created did not exist except as a shadowy and uninteresting place.

  She went to dial for a drink, accepting the small cup of hot liquid gratefully. Her mouth felt parched and she was aware of that usual reaction to coming danger. The familiar dryness of her tongue and lips, the moisture of her palms were warnings for her to exert the techniques in which she had long been schooled.

  Waiting was always difficult. If one could plunge straight into the indicated action, one lost oneself in that. But to have to sit and wait… How long before the other player Hyon was putting on the board arrived? She would not even know who he was, nor how much she could depend on him. And she did not like working in the dark. This was far outside of any operation of which she had before been a part. And she found she enjoyed it less with every passing minute.

  III

  “So I ask for this Uahach.”

  The Foostmam’s hands rested on the edge of her memory control board. She favored Burr with an unwinking stare so devoid of any personality, he began to wonder if the ruler of the Hive was now caught in some dream herself. Then she spoke, without any warning inflection in her voice.

  “You say that the Lord Osdeve spoke of her. Yes, she was on lease to him. But you must understand, Lord, she is still unbriefed in a new series, for she has only returned to the Hive two days ago. You would not be able to choose your subject matter…”

  Burr opened his belt pouch, produced a silvery credit plate.

  “I’m not asking for a series to be arranged just for me. In fact, I am only curious to see how this dreaming of Ty-Kry works. Any briefing she had had for Lord Osdeve would be all right as far as I am concerned. It is merely that I would like to try it as an experiment, you understand.”

  The Foostmam’s stare had shifted for several breaths to the credit plate. Burr himself had never handled such before: unlimited credit, a promise to be accepted on any planet where the Council had an Embassy.

  “For a single dreaming time,” the Foostmam said, “the price is higher, since the dreamer has no security factor for the future.”

  Burr shrugged. “Price does not matter. But I want Uahach. Osdeve had plenty to say about her dreaming when I saw him last.”

  The Foostmam again favored him with that blank expression. But her hand went to one of the buttons on the small control board and pressed two. A pattern, not a face, flashed on the vision screen. She eyed it and then her hand closed over the credit plate.

  “She has not yet gone through debriefing. Very well, if you will accept Osdeve’s series, it can be done. You have your certificate of health and stability?”

  He produced a second piece of perforated plasta. She accepted that to push into a slit on the control board. There was a relay of clicks and the pattern on the screen changed.

  “What is the danger in dreaming?” he decided to come openly to the point. As an off-worlder, unfamiliar with the processes of the Hive, Burr believed that he could ask such a question as a matter of routine.

  “A ten point A dreamer,” the Foostmam returned, “can produce so vivid a dream that its reality entirely grips the client. In such cases any strain on the heart or the mind can prove to be a very serious thing. Therefore, we naturally wish to know that this will not happen. We will also have a Medic standing by. But the final choice anywhere in the dream to leave is always for the Client to exercise. If you dislike the dream you will it to end. Since you will be mind-linked with the dreamer, your will instantly records with her and she releases you.”

  “The danger then must be slight,” Burr prodded.

  “It has been so.” Apparently the Foostmam was not going to say anything about the recent fatalities in the Hive. “When do you wish to call upon Uahach’s services?”

  “How about right now?” Burr pressed. “The rest of this Five Days I guest with Lord Erlvin and I believe he has made arrangements I cannot alter.”

  The Foostmam held his credit plaque between thumb and forefinger. She was again fixed of eyes, but Burr was sure she was no longer studying him, rather thinking deeply.

  “Uahach is free, that is true. But there must be our own preparations to be made. At the present all our interior dream rooms are occupied. But if you will choose to return past nooning it can be arranged.”

  “Good enough.” Burr reached forward and plucked the credit plate from her fingers. She had continued to hold that as if reluctant to lay it down. He wondered fleetingly just how many such plaques she had ever seen. Galaxy wide complete credit vouchers could not be too common.

  He nooned in the best of Ty-Kry’s restaurants. And he ate sparingly, selecting from a list which had been supplied him along with the plaque which had so entranced the mistress of the Hive. All that could possibly be done to ensure his own safety (outside of actually canceling the operation entirely) was accomplished. But he did face the unknown, and a threatening unknown.

  When he returned to the Hive he was shown directly to a room occupied nearly to the full extent of its area by two couches. Between them stood the machine of linkage and there was already a girl stretched on the right-hand couch, her face masked past nose level by a helmet. Its twin awaited him. The dreamer was breathing in slow, regular breaths and Burr wondered if she were already asleep.

  Two attendants, one of whom wore the insignia of a Medic greeted him and, within moments, Burr was installed on the other couch, blindfolded by the padded helmet. He drew a very deep breath of his own. There was no pulling back now; this was it!

  He blacked out with a queasy feeling of whirling out and out through space itself. Then there came a burst of light as if he lay under the warmth of a sun, helmetless and in the open.

  Burr sat up slowly, surveying the country about him. He had not expected this… this freedom of body, the absolute reality of all he could see. Experimentally he pulled at a tuft of gray-green grass. It resisted and then gave way, so that roots and reddish soil parted company. He… this… was so real!

  Around his present position small hills or mounds arose to make a wall about a cup of lower land in which he crouched. On the top of each was embedded a standing stone, weatherworn, but certainly never so regularly placed by any natural means. The country bore no resemblance to any he had ever seen before.

  Burr got slowly to his feet. An A dream promised straight action adventure. This landscape had a certain grim and threatening appearance, but as far as he could see, he was alone in it and there was an absence of any life signs. No bird wheeled overhead, no insect buzzed or flew. This was being on a deserted stage before the curtain arose and the play began.

  The nearest of the rounded hills attracted him. From its summit surely he would be able to see more than he could in this hollow. And toward that block-crowned summit he climbed.

  The tall mound was covered with grass of the same gray-green shade as the tuft he had pulled. And it was both steep and slippery, so he stumbled and had to clutch at the grass to keep from slipping back into the spot where he had entered this hallucinatory world.

  Once on the crest he turned slowly, facing outward, trying to get an idea of the country. The hills with their pillars continued on into what he guessed was the north in an unending series. But to the south there were only a few before they gave way to a wide open land in which were embedded a number of stones, tumbled together in a manner which suggested they were very ancient remains of some building or buildings, long reduced to a rubble, either by time itself or some ancient disaster.

  There was a deep, quiet brooding over this stark world. Yet from somewhere came a vibration which could be felt rather than heard. It was almost as if the land itself were breathing, slowly, heavily.

  Burr had a desire to shout, to make some sou
nd which would rip away that quiet. He mistrusted all he saw with more than the mistrust which warnings had set in him. This was… dangerous, in a way he could not grasp.

  His hand went to his belt, or where his belt should have rested, instinctively hunting a stunner such as any prudent man wore in strange territory. But his fingers swept across bare skin and for the first time he looked down at his own body.

  He was no longer wearing the rather fantastic suit which had been designed for Burr Neklass, multi-credit man. Instead his body was darker of skin where it was clearly visible. He did have on a pair of breeches of a steel-colored material, seemingly elastic and fitting nearly as tightly as that same skin. On his feet were coverings feeling as soft as if fashioned of cloth, but soled with thickness of a dull red material, while the upper part of the shoes (?) were stitched with glittering red thread to mark each hidden toe plainly.

  Above the waist he had two belt straps, not for about his waist, but reaching one over the right shoulder and one the left. Where those crossed on his breast they were united with a palm-sized plate of silver metal in which were set colored stones ranging in shade from a deep red to a brilliant orange. About each upper arm was a wide band of the same silver, one bearing all red stones, the other yellow to orange. It was to Burr the dress of some off-world barbarian, in spite of the obviously fine workmanship, and certainly one he had never seen before.

  Movement among the tumbled blocks of the ruins sent him ducking prudently to shelter behind the monolith which stood beside him on the hilltop. For the first time he realized his folly in making so open an appearance there. Something was flitting from cover to cover among the stones, moving so fast he could catch only a confused glimpse of it. He could not even be sure it was humanoid.

  There were plainly no weapons furnished him in this dress. Now as he knelt behind the stone, Burr gazed around him for some possible way of arming himself. Finally he pried loose a small rock which he held in his hand.

  A usual client of any dreamer was prepared for the nature of the dream, since he had indeed ordered it. But Burr must accept the programming which Osdeve had ordered and what had been implanted in the pseudo-Uahach.

  Therefore he did not know what to expect, except trouble. And perhaps that was flitting toward him even now.

  IV

  There was more than one… Burr drew a deep breath, his grip on the stone so tight that the rough surface scored his fingertips. One hid behind two blocks still piled one on top of the other, a second moved, with the same fluid speed, more to his right, gone to cover before he had more than an impression of raw color, an acid blue which flashed swiftly among the stones.

  That they hunted him, he somehow knew. Perhaps Osdeve enjoyed this type of thrill… chase, choosing, because of the infirmities of his final years, a physical-combat type of dream.

  Burr glanced over his shoulder at the procession of mound-hills filing on to the far horizon. He could retreat perhaps, play what he was sure would be a deadly kind of hide-and-seek, through that countryside. But that would only prolong whatever action lay in this dream. No, he would stay where he was until he was sure that the danger ahead was too much for him to handle.

  Perhaps they had lost sight of him and their impatience was enough to bring them out. For they were moving again, this time farther into the open. There, some distance from each other, yet in an even line, three oddities stood statue still, as if by freezing they could also conceal their presence.

  For an off-world traveler Burr had long lost the ability to be surprised by any alien difference from his own norm. But these were unusual enough to rivet his attention.

  It was hard to judge sizes from this distance, but he believed that all three of them were taller than himself. And they were birds, or at least birdlike in form. Their bodies, perched on long, thin legs, were covered with a vivid blue or green feathering (there was one green and two blues) which fluffed into plumes for tails. Their heads were unusually large, bearing tall crests of feathers, large eyes, and murderous appearing bills with points like Harkiman short swords. These outsize heads were connected to the bodies by long and very supple necks which were bare of the feathering, showing instead an expanse of scaled skin.

  There was nothing reassuring about them. Rather Burr knew, just as he had been sure he was the quarry of a hunt, that they were deadly enemies to his own kind.

  Now they were no longer so still. The green one dropped its head, a fraction, straightened its neck. Thus it pointed directly in Burr’s direction. The man began to suspect that perhaps his lingering here had been the wrong choice after all. Yet the speed with which the bird things had transversed the ruins made him sure that any race between them would end fatally for him.

  Was this how those others had died? Had they been hunted, perhaps not by those feathered monstrosities before him, but by other enemies? He remembered the warning of the Foostmam: he could wake…

  The green bird took a flying leap which lifted it from among the blocks, moved it as if it were a chess piece in action to the crown of a nearer hill, slightly lower than that on which Burr had taken refuge. No use trying to play hero, this was a time to wake.

  Instead of his directive being answered by an instant cancellation of the hunt menacing him, there was a quiver of light through the air. Point deep in the earth beside his sheltering monolith stood a spear, its haft still vibrating a little from the force of the throw which had hurled it there.

  Instinctively Burr’s hand went out to tighten on that haft. And the same time he was startled by a shout from the north. The head of the green bird snapped around, its intent gaze now in that direction. Burr wrenched the spear out of the ground. But overriding all else in his mind at that moment was that the cancellation demand had not worked!

  So, he balanced the spear in one hand. This was it! He could well have been abandoned here. And the pseudo-Uahach who got him into this could not get him out. His stubborn refusal to be downed took over. Someone had thrown him a weapon, though it appeared a very paltry one taken in connection with the size and swiftness of the enemy. And someone had drawn the bird’s attention…

  Burr edged around, trying to keep an eye both on the birds as well as discover who had come to his rescue, if only momentarily. At the same moment the green bird gave vent to the first sound he had heard it make, a shrill, ear-tormenting scream. It sprang directly into the air from the stand it had taken on the other mound.

  And, though it seemed wingless and unable to fly, that prodigious leap carried it directly to another mound, this even with the one on which Burr crouched, but still a short distance away. It no longer watched him, rather continued to look to the north.

  Though he felt he dared not glance away from its two companions still among the ruins, he had to know who, or what, the thing was now moving to attack.

  The body of the bird tensed, its long legs just a little bent. Burr was sure it was about to launch a third spectacular leap. If so, it was a fraction late in coming to that determination. Something whirled through the air. The weighted ends of a long cord snapped about the legs just under the bird’s body, the force of their passage wrapping the limbs tightly together. The bird crashed with a fury of squawking, its head bobbing up and down as it tore at that prisoning cord with its wicked bill. As it writhed on the ground a second weighted cord whirled, wrapping about its neck with force enough to completely overset it and bind its head partly to its body.

  Burr slued around to watch for its companions. They had vanished, though they might be using the cover of the mounds themselves to come to the aid of their half-bound fellow.

  “Come!”

  That was no scream from the bird, it was a clearly distinguishable word in everyday Basic. Burr turned again. Two mounds away a figure stood waving him on. The newcomer was cloaked, a hood pulled well down so he could distinguish little more than it had at least a general humanoid shape. And since there was nothing else to do, he obeyed, running down one slope and up the nex
t at the best speed he could manage, while the corded bird continued to screech.

  He was gasping as he fought up the last incline. A hand shot out from under the edge of the cloak, caught his arm and jerked him on, so that both of them were able to dart behind the monolith on this mound.

  “That whip-round will not hold the qwaker long.” Burr was looking eye to eye with a girl. She pushed back her hood, showing hair pulled tight into a clasp high near the crown of her head, flowing freely from that down to her shoulders. And that hair was a dark blue. As with Burr the skin she bared as she shrugged the cloak back on her shoulders to free her arms was dark brown. And under her slanting blue brows her eyes shone like fiery sparks of orange flame.

  Burr balanced the spear thoughtfully. “I would not say this would be too effective either,” he commented dryly. “What now, do we run?”

  He had no idea from whence this female had sprung. She seemed to have saved his life for the moment at least. Now she was shaking her head so that upheld plume of hair swished back and forth whispering against her hooded shoulders.

  “That is what they wish. They can move faster than any man. No, we change…”

  “Change what,” he repeated.

  “Change our dream site. Give me your hand!” Her fingers closed about his in a grip which had no gentleness in it. With the other hand she made a sweeping gesture.

  The world reeled and Burr closed his eyes to fight nausea, for this instability was outside of any state of consciousness he knew. When he made himself look once more he was standing on a beach of yellowish sand against which washed, with turgid slowness, a vast body of water which might even be a languid sea. But his hand was still clasped in hers and he caught what might be a sigh of relief. Then she dropped her hold and moved a little away.