Wine of the Dreamers (19 page)

Bard stubbed out his cigarette. He laughed softly. “Sort of a long range affair, isn’t it? Raul identified their planet as being near Alpha Centauri. If he gave me a picture of what is actually their world, my lady love has a bald and gleaming skull, the body of a twelve year old child. I can hardly wait.”

“Don’t make a joke out of it, Bard!” she said with some heat. “We need you. If we’re ever going to live up to the promise that we had in the Beatty One, you have to help us.”

“I see. Raul gets one billion people to each hand us a dollar and then we start from scratch.”

She stood up quickly and stubbed out her cigarette. “All right, Bard. I thought you might want to help. I’m sorry. I was wrong. It was good to see you again. Good luck.” She turned away.

“Come back and sit down, Sharan. I’m sorry.”

She hesitated, came back. “Then listen. Of all men on this planet, you have the best overall grasp of the problems involved in the actual utilization of Beatty’s formulas. Some forgotten man on Raul’s planet perfected those formulas roughly thirteen thousand years before Beatty did. Raul has gotten to the ships he told you about. He nearly died in the attempt. When he was gone too long the first time, Leesa went out after him and managed to get him back before he froze to death. He has been in one of the ships a dozen times. He thinks that it is still in working condition. He has activated certain parts of it—the air supply, internal heating. But as far as the controls are concerned, you are the only one who can help. He is baffled.”

“How can I help?”

“We discussed that. He can use your hand to draw, from memory, the exact position of every knob and switch, along with a translation of the symbols that appear on them. If the principle is the same, which he is almost certain that it is, then you should be able to figure out the most logical purpose of each control.”

“But … look, Sharan, the odds against my being right. They’re tremendous. And the smallest mistake will leave him lost in space, or aflame on the takeoff. Or suppose he does find us. Suppose he barrels into our atmosphere at ten thousand miles per second and makes his landing in Central Park or the Chicago Loop district?”

“He’s willing to take the chance.”

She let him think without interruption. He drew aimless lines on the tablecloth with his thumbnail. “What would be gained?”

“What would the Beatty One have gained? And you do read the papers, don’t you? Mysterious crash of stratoliner. Father slays family of six. Bank embezzler throws two millions into Lake Erie. Novelist’s girlfriend buried alive. Auto charges noon crowds on busy street corner. We’ve always considered that sort of thing inexplicable, Bard. We’ve made big talk about irrational spells, about temporary insanity, about the way the human mind is prone to go off balance without warning. Isn’t that sort of thing worth stopping, even at a billion to one chance? Religions have been born out of the fantasies the Watchers have planted in the minds of men. Wars have been started for the sake of amusing those who have considered us to be merely images given the appearance of reality by a strange machine.”

Again the silence. He smiled. “How do we start?”

“We’ve worked out a coordinated time system. Their ‘days’ are longer than ours. We’ll have to go to my place. They expect me to bring you there so that contact can be made. It is quicker than searching each time. We have an hour before we have to get there.”

She had a hotel suite. Bedroom and sitting room. Physically there were two people in the room. Mentally there were four. Bard sat in a deep chair, the floor lamp shining down on the pad he held against his knee. Sharan stood by the window.

Through Bard’s lips, Raul said, “We’ll have to make this a four-way discussion, and so all thoughts will have to be vocalized. How will we make identification?”

Sharan said, “This is Leesa speaking. Raul, when you or I speak, we’ll hold up the right hand. That should serve.”

It was agreed. Bard felt the uncanny lifting of his right hand without his own conscious volition. “In Dr. Lane’s mind, Sharan and Leesa, I still find considerable doubt.
He seems willing to go along with us, but he is still skeptical.” The hand dropped.

Bard said, “I can’t help it. And I admit to certain animosity, too. Leesa, as I understand it, ruined Project Tempo.”

Sharan lifted her right hand. “Only because I didn’t understand, then. Believe me, Bard. Please. You have to believe me. You see, I—–”

Bard’s right hand lifted and Raul said, “Leesa, we haven’t time for that sort of thing. Don’t interrupt for a moment. I want to draw the instrument panel for Dr. Lane.”

Bard Lane felt the pressure that forced him further back from the threshold of volition. His hand grasped the pencil. Quickly a drawing of an old instrument panel began to take shape. Across the top were what appeared to be ten square dials. Each one was calibrated vertically, with a zero at the middle, plus values above, minus values below the zero point. The indicator was a straight line across the dial resting on the zero point. Below each dial were what appeared to be two push buttons, one above the other. Raul murmured, “This is the part that I cannot understand. I have figured out the rest of the controls. The simplest one is directional. A tiny replica of the ship is mounted on a rod at the end of a universal joint. The ship can be turned manually. From what I have gathered from the instruction manuals, the replica is turned to the desired position. The ship itself follows suit, and as it does so, the replica slowly moves back to the neutral position. Above the ten dials is a three-dimensional screen. Once a planet is approached, both planet and ship show on the screen. As the ship gets closer to the surface, the scale becomes smaller so that actual terrain details appear. Landing consists of setting the ship image gently against the image of the planet surface. Such maneuvering is apparently on the same basis as the Beatty One. But there is no hand control for it. There are diaphragms to strap on either side of the larynx and velocity is achieved through the intensity with which a certain
vowel is uttered. I tested that portion of the ship by making the vowel sound as softly as I could. The ship trembled. I imagine that the purpose is to enable the pilot to control the ship even when pressure keeps him from lifting a finger. I feel capable of taking the ship up and landing it again. But unless I can understand the ten dials below the three-dimensional screen, it is obvious that no extended voyage can be made.”

The pressure faded. Bard said, “Have you tried to discover the wiring details behind the dials?”

“Yes. I cannot understand it. And it is so complicated that by memorizing one portion at a time and transmitting that portion to you, I feel that it would take at least one of your years before it would be complete, and then I would have no real assurance that it was entirely accurate.”

“Plus and minus values, eh? How good is your translation of the figures? Is your math equivalent to ours?”

“No. Your interval is ten. Ours is nine. The roughest possible comparison would be to say that your value for twenty is the second digit in our third series.”

“Then the nine plus and nine minus values above and below the zero cover a full simple series. I am always wary of snap judgments, but those dials remind me, unmistakably, of the answer column in any computing device. With ten dials and only plus values alone, you could arrive at our equivalent of one billion. Adding in the minus values, you can achieve a really tremendous series of values. The available numbers could be computed as one billion multiplied by nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. Navigation always assumes known coordinates. Assume, for a moment, that the basic future-past relationship is expressed as plus and minus. Assume further that utilizing the varying frames of temporal reference, it is necessary to cross, at the very most, ten time lines to arrive at the most distant star—the star that, from your position, is equidistant no matter in which direction you start out. Now, for any nearer star, there
will be a preferred route. There will be an assumed direction. You will intersect the frames of reference at an assumed point. Thus, your controls should be so set as to take advantage, at the proper fractional part of a second, of your plus-minus, or, more accurately, your future-past distortions. This would mean an index number, starting from your position, for each star—not a fixed index number, but a number which, adjusted by a formula to allow for orbital movement and galactic movement, will give you the setting for the controls. One of the unknowns to fit into the equation before using it is your present value for time on your planet. No. Wait a minute. If I were designing the controls I would use a radiation timing device for accuracy, and have the controls work the formula themselves so that the standard star reference number could always be used.”

“It will have to be that way. It has been centuries since we have maintained any record of elapsed time.”

“The buttons under the dials should be the setting device. The upper button should, with each time you push it, lift your indicator one plus notch. The lower button should drop it, one notch at a time, into the minus values. The final number, placed on the dials, should take you across space to the star for that specific setting. It would be the simplest possible type of control which could be used with the Beatty formulas—far simpler than the one on which we were working. But to use it, you must find somewhere, probably on the ship, a manual which will give you a listing of the values for the stars.”

Bard Lane felt the excitement in Raul Kinson’s thoughts. “A long time ago. Three of your years. Possibly more. I found books printed on thin metallic plates. They did not mean anything to me. Long bi-colored numbers. They were awkward to read compared with the micro-books. I remember the cover design—a stylized pattern of a star and planet system.”

“That could be what you need. But let me make one thing clear. If I’m correct about the controls, and if you should use the wrong setting, you will, in all probability,
never be able to find either Earth or your home planet again. You could spend forty lifetimes searching, with the same chance of finding either as of finding two specific motes of dust in the atmosphere of this planet. Make certain that you are quite willing to take the risk.”

Leesa said softly, “Quite willing, Bard.”

“Then find these books again. Study the numbers. See if they will fit the dials. See if you can determine our index number beyond doubt. And then contact me again.”

Pressure on his mind faded quickly. Before it was entirely gone, Bard caught the faint thought: “This dream is ending.”

The two of them were alone in the room. Sharan said softly, “Can he do it? Can he come here?”

He stood up and walked over to the windows. Across the street a couple walked hand in hand under the lights. A line had formed, waiting to get into the video studio.

“What is she like? What are her thoughts like?”

“Like a woman’s.”

“When will they be back?”

“Midnight tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here.”

Ten of the older men were gathered in Jord Orlan’s quarters. They sat stiffly and their eyes glowed. It had taken a long time for Jord Orlan to slowly bring them up to the proper pitch.

“Our world is good,” he chanted.

“Our world is good,” they responded in unison, the half-forgotten instincts rising up within them, hoarsening voices.

“The dreams are good.”

“The dreams are good.”

“And we are the Watchers and we know the Law.”

“Yes, we know the Law.”

Orlan held his arms straight out, his fists clenched. “And they would put an end to the dreams.”

“… an end to the dreams.” The words had a sad sound.

“But they will be stopped. The two of them. The black-haired ones who are strange.”

“They will be stopped.”

“I have tried, my brothers, to show them the errors of their ways. I have tried to lead them into the ways of Truth. But they claim the three worlds are reality.”

“Orlan has tried.”

“I am not a vindictive man. I am a just man. I know the Law and the Truth. They have gone out into the nothingness, out into the emptiness that surrounds us, to look for the worlds of which we dream. Death will be a kindness.”

“A kindness.”

“Seek them out, my brothers. Put them in the tube of death. Let them slide down into the darkness and fall forever through the blackness. I have tried and I have failed. There is nothing else we can do.”

“Nothing else.”

They moved slowly toward the door, then faster. Faster. Jord Orlan stood and heard the pad of their feet against the warm floor, the growling in their throats. And they were gone. He sat down heavily. He was very tired. And he did not know if he had done the right thing. It was too late for doubts. And yet … He frowned. There was a basic flaw in the entire thought process. If outside was a nothingness, how could the two of them go outside and return? To have them do so would indicate that the nothingness was a “somethingness.” And if that were true, then Raul Kinson’s fanatic beliefs had to be given certain credence.

But once Raul Kinson was credited with any correctness, the entire structure of his own beliefs faded and dimmed. Jord Orlan’s head hurt. It was a sad thing to have lived so long in perfect comfort with one’s thoughts and then to have this tiny bitter arrow of doubt festering in his soul. He yearned to pluck it out. Possibly the spy
had been mistaken. Possibly they did not go out into the nothingness.

He found himself descending toward the lowest level in great haste. He found the door. It did not take him long to remember the secrets of the twin wheels. He pulled the door open. And this time he dared to keep his eyes open. The wind whipped his cheeks. He squinted into it. The six ships stood tall against the huge red sun. Sand drifted in at his feet. He picked up a handful of it. He closed the door against the wind and leaned his forehead against the metal. He did not move for a long time. He turned and hurried back the way he had come.

Six of them were holding Raul. Raul’s face was twisted with fury and, above the grunting of the captors, Jord Orlan heard the popping and crackling of Raul’s shoulder muscles as he struggled, sometimes lifting his captors off their feet. Four of them were having an equally difficult time with the girl. They held her horizontally, two at her feet and two at her head. Her robe had been flung aside. As Jord Orlan neared them, they rushed with her toward the tube, toward the black oval mouth of it. But she twisted one foot free, planted it against the wall near the mouth of the tube and thrust with all her strength. They staggered and fell with her.