Wine of the Dreamers (12 page)

“We, Leesa, are remote descendants of the original Watchers. All the migration ships were destroyed except the six I showed you from the window. The place Jord Orlan calls our ‘world’ is merely a vast structure built over ten thousand years ago, when the Leaders used all the science at the disposal of our race to make it as completely automatic, as immune to time as possible. The original Watchers, five thousand in number, were selected from all the numbers of our race. They were the ones with the greatest emotional stability, the most freedom from hereditary disorders, the highest potentials of intelligence. Those original Watchers were indoctrinated with the importance of their duties, their debt to the future of the race. They were given the great building on a dying world, and six ships with which to make periodic patrols to the colonial worlds.”

“But the ships are not—–”

“Listen carefully. It was planned that there would be no contact between colonial worlds for five thousand years. Yet ten thousand have passed, and still it is the Law that we must prevent those ‘dream’ worlds from creating devices to enable them to leave their planets. Here is what happened. The structure Orlan calls our ‘world’ was too comfortable. Patrols were made for almost three thousand years. But those who made the patrols detested being taken out of the warmth and leisure of the structure. It had been built too well. The Watchers had not yet lost the science of the race. It took a thousand years to find a way to eliminate the physical patrols and still discharge the responsibilities given them. At last the Watchers, experimenting with the phenomenon of hypnotic control, with thought transference, with the mystery of the communication of human minds on the level of pure thought—a thing regarded as a superstition on Earth, yet practiced to the extent of near-atrophy of speech on Ormazd—devised a method of mechanically amplifying this latent ability in the human mind. The things we call dream machines are nothing more than devices which hook the massive power sources of our contrived world to the projection of thought, with three control settings so that the narrow, instantaneous beam is directed at whichever colonial world is chosen by the ‘dreamer.’ When we ‘dream’ we are but conducting a mental patrol of the actual colonial planets.”

“That is absurd! You are mad!”

“For many, many years the dreams were sober, serious affairs, conducted as they were meant to be conducted. The ships sat idle. The outside world grew colder. No one left the building. The science was lost. The Watchers failed in their purpose. The genetic selection of the original Watchers was varied enough to prevent the inbreeding and resultant stagnation for five thousand years. But when the science behind the dream machines was lost, the machines themselves acquired a primitive religious significance. We have become a little colony, less than one
fifth of the original number. We are blind to the true purpose of our existence. We have gone on for double the length of time originally intended. We are a curse and an affliction to the three colonial planets, merely because we believe that they do not exist, that they are something for our pleasure.”

“Raul, you know that I am not here. You know that I am in the dream case which is mine for all my life, my hand under my cheek, and—–”

He went on inexorably. “We deal with three colonial planets. Marith, our favorite playground, has been turned into chronic primitive barbarism. Four thousand years ago Marith was close to space flight. We smashed them, through the dreams. There, when we possess a person, we are known as devils, as demons.

“And five thousand years ago Earth was ready for space flight. We smashed that culture, completely. When we were through, we left behind us the Aztecs, with only remnants of what had been an atomic culture. We left them with the rudiments of brain surgery, with stone pyramids shaped like the space ships they had tried to build, with sacrifices to the sun god on top of the pyramids—sacrifices actually to the hydrogen-helium reaction which they had conquered and which we had destroyed as they attempted to use it. Now Earth culture has returned to an atomic culture. We shall smash it again, drive them back into savagery. When we take over an Earth body, they have many names for us. Temporary insanity. Epilepsy. Frenzy. Trance. There are over seven hundred of us who are permitted to dream. Seven hundred feckless children who can commit acts without fear of consequence.

“On Ormazd they know who we are, and what we are. Twice we have destroyed their attempts to cross space. They no longer have the urge to leave their planet. They have found vaster galaxies within the human mind than any that can be conquered by machines. All three colonial planets would be better rid of us, Leesa.”

In a halting voice she said, “I have tried to believe you.
But I cannot. Were I to believe you, it would mean that …”

“You might have to accept a moral responsibility for the acts you have committed, for death you have brought to people as real as you and I?”

“We are in the dream cases, Raul. The clever machines make this world for us.”

“Then break that mirror. Tomorrow you can return to find it broken. Or dive from that window. Tomorrow you can return to find the broken body of the girl you are inhabiting.”

“That is because of the cleverness of the machines.”

“There are other proofs, Leesa. On Ormazd you can find the records of the original Migrations. On Marith, you can read their mythologies, and find reference to the ships that landed, belching fire. They think they came from the sun. On Earth here, a race believes themselves descended from the sun. And there are traces, in Earth mythology, of giants that walked the earth, of great ships and chariots that crossed the sky. All three planets were populated by manlike creatures before our remote ancestors arrived. On Earth, after a time, the two races could interbreed. On Marith and Ormazd the original races died out. You see, Leesa, there is too much proof to be ignored.”

She was silent for a long time. “I cannot believe what you say. Tomorrow I shall enclose myself in the case. I shall become a naked savage girl in a jungle, or a woman leading a burro down a mountain path. Or I can meet with my friends on Marith and we can play the game of identification, or the game of killing, or the game of love, or the game of the chase. No, Raul. No. I cannot change what I believe.”

“Leesa,” he said softly, “you have always believed, in your heart, that these worlds are real. That is why you have been so wanton, so cruel, in your dreams, because you were trying to deny their existence. You and I are different. We are not like the others. We are stronger. You and I can change the—–”

He stopped speaking as he saw the woman on the bed put her hand to her forehead and look at him oddly. She spoke so slowly that even without releasing the host, he understood her. “George, I feel so strange.”

Leesa had gone. He knew not in what direction. She had ended the talk in such a way that he could not find her. He let the host-mind take over the maximum amount of control, right on the edge of the fading of vision and hearing which would mean a full release of the host.

“Something wrong with those drinks, maybe. That bartender had a funny look. Maybe it was a mickey. I feel funny too.”

The woman lay back on the bed. Raul felt the slow beginning of desire in the host-body. The woman smiled up at him. As the man moved toward the bed Raul released the last of his control, faded off into the familiar area where there was no color, no light. Nothing but the strange consciousness of direction. He slanted downward with a gentle impulse, drifting until he felt the nearby entity, orienting himself to it, gathering it in slowly. Vision came. He was in a taxi. He was late. The host-mind was fogged with alcohol, but the emotions were particularly vivid. Raul read the mind as one might turn the pages of a book. Despair and torment and the desire for death. Hate, fear and envy. But most of all an enormous longing for a sleep that would be endless. The man paid the driver, walked slowly into a lobby, took the small self-service elevator up to the eighth floor. He unlocked the door and went in. The woman came out of the bedroom with the shining weapon in her hand. She pointed it and shut her eyes. The little hot bits of lead bit warm liquid channels into the host-body—not pain. Just shock and warmness and a sort of melting. The host-brain faded quickly, and as Raul slid away, he caught the last impulse of consciousness. Not satisfaction with the surprise gift of the death that had been desired—but panic and fear and longing for the things of life as yet untasted.

Raul did not find ease of spirit until at last he entered
the mind of a man, an old man, who sat in the park, half dozing in the sun. In that mind he waited for the dream to end.

EIGHT

In the private rooms assigned to him because he was Leader, Jord Orlan stared at the girl who sat facing him, hoping to disconcert her with his silence. This Leesa Kinson was too … alive. The heavy strands of black hair were unusual. Hair like that of the dream people, or like that of her brother, Raul. The planes of her face had strength and her lips were too red. Jord Orlan preferred the quieter, drabber, frailer women. With an effort he brought his memory back to the reason for summoning her to him.

“Leesa Kinson, it has been reported to me that you have had no child.”

“That is right.”

“It has been reported that you have favored no man among us.”

She smiled as though it were of no consequence. “Perhaps no one finds me acceptable. I have been told that I am remarkably ugly.”

“You smile. Have you forgotten the Law? Too many of the women are barren. All who can have a child must do so. It is the duty of all to have a child. You are as strong as a man. It is the Law that you must have many children. The weak ones too often die, and the child with them.”

“You talk about the Law. Where is the Law? Can I handle it, read it?”

“Reading is a habit of the first and second worlds. Not here.”

Her lip curled. “I can read. I learned when I was a child
on the high levels. My brother taught me. I can read our language and I can write it. Show me the Law.”

“The Law was told to me. It was told enough times so that I remember it and even now I am teaching it to others. I had hoped to teach it to Raul but—–”

“He has no interest in being Leader. Is it against your Law to learn to read?”

“I find you impertinent. It is my Law and also yours, Leesa Kinson. To learn to read is not against the Law. It is merely pointless. What is the reason for reading? There are the dreams and the food and sleep and the rooms for games and healing. Why read?”

“It is good to know something that others do not know, Jord Orlan.”

“If you persist in impertinence I shall punish you by denying you the right to dream for many many days.”

She shrugged and regarded him steadily. Her gray eyes made him oddly uncomfortable. He said more gently, “The old ways are the best ways. Why are you not happy?”

“Who is?”

“Why, I am! All of us are. Life is full. You and Raul are the discontented ones. The strange ones. When I was small there was one like you two. In fact, I believe that he may have been the father of your mother. He, too, had a different appearance. He created much trouble, and was punished many times. He struck many of the men, and he was hated and feared. Then one day a woman saw him just as he climbed into the oval tube that leads down into the unending blackness. She had no wish to stop him. You see, that is the end of discontentment. You must learn to be contented.”

Her eyelids grew heavy and she yawned. It angered him.

He leaned forward. “Leesa Kinson, I believe that this attitude of yours is unnatural. I believe that it was caused by your brother. He has been a bad influence. He has nothing to do with any of the games. When he is not dreaming, it is impossible to find him.”

An idea began to shape itself. He considered it carefully. “May I go?” she asked.

“No. I am curious about your brother. I have attempted to talk to him many times. No one knows of his dreams. He does not enter into any of the games. I suspect him of neglect of the prime responsibility of the dream. Has he talked to you of … of any matters which could be considered heresy?”

“Would I tell you?”

“I think you might be glad to. I am not vindictive. If his ideas are incorrect I shall attempt to change them. If you refuse to give me any information, I shall order you to favor a man of my own choosing, one who will follow orders. It is within my power to do that. And it is the Law that you shall bear children.”

Her lips were compressed. “Orders can be disobeyed.”

“And you can be taken to a place on the lowest level and thrust out of this world for failure to disobey an order. I would not care to do that. So tell me what Raul has said to you.”

She moved a bit in the chair, not meeting his glance. “He … he has said things that are not right.”

“Go on.”

“He has said that the three worlds of the dreams actually exist and that what we call dreams are just … a method for us to visit the three real worlds. He says that this world is just a big structure and that it rests on a planet that is like the other three, but colder and older.”

Jord Orlan stood up quickly and began to pace back and forth. “It is more serious than I believed. He needs help. Badly. He must be made to see the Truth.”

“The Truth as you see it?” she asked gently.

“Do not scoff. What did you say when Raul told you his absurd theories?”

“I told him that I didn’t believe him.”

“Very good, my child. But now you must go to him and you must pretend to believe what he says. You must encourage him to say more. You must find out what he does, in his dreams. And you must report everything back
to me immediately. When we know the full extent of his heresy we will be in a better position to take his hand and lead him to the Truth.” His voice grew more resonant. He faced her, his arms spread, his face glowing. “Once, when I was young, I doubted too. But as I grew wiser, I found the Truth. The entire universe is encompassed within these familiar walls. Outside is the end of all, an unthinkable emptiness. Our minds cannot comprehend utter emptiness. It is a thousand times less than the floating just before you enter the mind of a dream creature. In this universe, this totality, there are nearly one thousand souls. We are the static nub of the universe, the only small place of reality. It has been thus forever, and forever shall be. Now go and do as I say, Leesa.”