Dimension Of Dreams rb-11 Read online

  A sudden rumble of thunder reminded Blade that he was not doing himself any good by standing there in the open and the cold, exposed to chance spears and passing showers. He would have to get to shelter and then worry about finding answers to the mystery of the city.

  But first, some clothing. Ignoring the blood, he began stripping the tunics and kilts from his victims and trying them on for size. He couldn’t even get into the first two sets, but the third was a tolerable fit. Sandals on his feet completed the outfit, and a spear completed his weaponry. Then he scrambled up the rubble and began looking for a building that was reasonably intact. The darkness already seemed thicker than before, and it was becoming more difficult to make things out. Another rumble of thunder, louder than the first, indicated that the storm was moving in.

  About three Home Dimension blocks away a relatively undamaged building rose a desolate twenty stories above the piled rubble at its base. It looked like the best prospect within easy reach, and time and weather were pressing. Blade began a lurching, scrambling advance toward the building, over the treacherous heaps of debris.

  It was a long and bruising struggle across the wide expanse of wreckage along the riverbank, but finally Blade scrambled down the last slope into comparatively open street. The main door of the building was half-blocked by the spilled and heaped fragments of its former neighbors. But Blade scrambled in over the twisted metal and chunks of stone and plastic into what must have once been a lobby. A sudden flash of lightning sent light glaring in through the high windows fifty feet above ground level, lighting up an even higher vaulted ceiling, which was grimed with generations of dust. The glare also revealed the entrance to a flight of stairs leading downward. Blade was about to step past them and look for a flight upward; he had no desire to be trapped in a cellar by a band of the marauders. But as he passed the head of the stairs, he felt an unmistakable current of warm air flowing up out of the stairwell. In the dank lifeless chill of the building it was as unmistakable and as startling as a slap in the face.

  Blade sniffed the air. No sign of smoke. Probably not the marauders, then. A fire large enough to produce that much heat would have been pouring out clouds of smoke. But he headed down the stairs, ready with sword and spear in his hands and mace in his belt.

  The stairs went down three full flights, each of twenty broad stone steps. The steps were padded with accumulated dust that puffed up in clouds from under Blade’s sandals and made him sneeze and cough in spite of his desperate efforts to keep quiet. The noise reverberated in the stairwell, filling the gaps between the thunderclaps that were now coming more and more frequently. As he descended farther, he became aware that the darkness was giving way to a faint but unmistakable pinkish light and that the air was definitely getting warmer. A moment later the spear he had been gently scraping along the right-hand wall thrust out into empty air. With both weapons ready and all senses keyed up to the limit, he slipped around the corner.

  He was at one end of a vaulted corridor stretching into the pink-tinged gloom. The ceiling, covered with red tile, rose to three times Blade’s height. Along the walls at intervals of forty-odd feet were circular recesses. As Blade stepped cautiously out into the corridor, he saw that in each recess was a featureless circular metal door about six feet in diameter.

  The floor of the corridor was deeply coated with dust, but the air was so warm that Blade knew there must be a major heat source somewhere. An artificial heat source, almost certainly, and that meant civilized people. Did they all lurk underground and leave the surface to the marauding barbarians? Did these vaultlike metal doors lead to their living quarters? At any rate, there did not seem to be any immediate danger, so Blade felt safe enough to strip off his clothes and let the warmth bake the night’s chill out of his naked body.

  Suddenly a faint click floated down the corridor to Blade’s ears, sounding as loud as an explosion in the dusty stillness of the corridor. Blade started and looked down the corridor-then hefted his weapons. With a faint whispering of long-unused machinery, the door of one of the vaults was slowly swinging open.

  Chapter Five

  Short of ducking back up the stairs, there was only one hiding place that Blade could see in the long corridor. Behind the opening door itself. He plunged down the corridor and dove behind the foot-thick disk of metal just as it swung fully open. Peering out from behind it, Blade saw a girl step out into the corridor.

  She wore the customary sandals and kilt, in a green so dark that it looked almost black in the dim light. Her hair was unbound and flowed down her back, like a black waterfall. She was carrying her tunic over her arm and wore nothing above the waist except a silver-glinting chain around her slim throat. As she turned to survey the corridor, Blade could not help admiring the high, firm, youthful breasts and the trim, flat stomach. But she was a living representative of the people who presumably had built the city. He had to talk to her. Carefully laying his weapons down on the floor, he stepped out into the open, hands spread wide in a conciliatory gesture.

  She started and her eyes went wide as she saw him, but she made no sound or any move to run. In fact, as her eyes went over him, there was a probing, even admiring look in them.

  Then she smiled and said, «It is your Waking time, too? Where are you from?»

  «My name is Blade. I am not from this basement. .» he gestured around the corridor, wondering if he had hit on the right word «. . but from elsewhere.»

  Even with his automatic command of the local language (a gift from the computer and its alterations to his brain), even with this woman’s apparently civilized background, this was not the time to explain how he had come from another dimension. Changing the subject, he asked, «What is your name?»

  «Narlena,» she answered. Then with a smile she said, «You must have already been moving about in Pura. Tell me, how is it now?»

  Blade could not help hesitating. How could she not know what had happened to the city above her head? And if she did not know, how could he tell her that the city lay in ruins and that marauding bands of armed barbarians stalked through those ruins, preying on those of her people bold enough to venture out on to the surface?

  Fortunately, he did not have to face the problem at once. Her mobile lips curved upward in a warm smile. «Never mind that for now. Come into my vault with me while I take my tests.» Blade could not help observing that her manner had become noticeably friendlier once she had completed her inspection of his nude body. He decided against taking up his weapons; so far she had accepted him as one of her own people. But displaying his array of marauder weapons might make her change her mind. He followed her into the vault and helped her close the door behind them.

  Moments after entering it, Blade knew that his hopes of finding an advanced civilization had been realized. Or at least an advanced technology, he corrected himself; the two were not necessarily the same.

  The interior of the vault was about the same size as a large studio apartment. But the walls from the soft, fur-covered floor up to the low, blue-enameled ceiling were almost completely covered with a maze of tubing and cylindrical reservoirs and with squarish metal boxes in a variety of colors at irregular intervals. Some of the boxes had conspicuous dials and lights on their sides. In one corner stood something large. It looked like a mummy case and was mounted on a gimbaled pedestal to give it movement in three directions. There were controls set into the cover, and both halves were lined with maroon plush contoured into a shape very much like the girl’s body.

  Squarely in the center of the chamber stood an upright cylindrical chamber, apparently of glass, with a vertical section on one side that swung open on almost invisible hinges. The cylinder was filled with some sort of thick gaseous substance, Blade could see its green gray coils writhing and twisting as he watched. But it could hardly be any ordinary gas, for although the door to the cylinder stood wide open, not a single wisp seemed to be escaping into the vault. Blade thought he could see vague hints of dangling wires and stra
ps inside, half-revealed by the eddying and flowing of the gas.

  Meanwhile, Narlena had stripped off her clothes and climbed naked into the mummy case. She pressed one of the controls set in the cover, and the cover swung silently closed. For a moment Blade stared uncertainly at its featureless, silvery metal surface. Then a faint hissing filled the chamber. Blade saw a thinner, reddish gas being pumped into the mummy case through a transparent length of tubing. The hissing lasted for perhaps a minute.

  Then the lights and dials on the metal boxes along the wall lit up, some of them flashing on and off, while needles wobbled and jerked across dials. Some sort of monitoring process was going on-Narlena’s «tests.» Obviously, both the mummy case and the boxes on the wall were part of it. Blade was reminded of films he had seen of medical data on astronauts in space.

  The light show went on for perhaps another five minutes; then all the lights and dials went dark simultaneously. The hissing sound began again as the reddish gas was drawn back out of the mummy case through the same tube. The cover swung back, and Narlena stepped out into the vault, a contented look on her face. She sat down on the fur that covered the floor, folded herself gracefully into the lotus position, and looked up at Blade with curiosity, as well as admiration.

  «Who are you, Blade?» Her voice was casual, with hardly more concern for his answer than a bus conductor saying, «Fare, please.» One would have thought she was as accustomed to entertaining nude male guests as a Home Dimension hostess might be to having cocktail parties. No, that was not quite correct, thought Blade. Once again he noticed the look in her eyes as they strayed over his massive physique, more than occasionally focusing on his genitals. Obviously, Narlena was physically interested in him.

  He decided to tell her the truth about himself. «I am not from your world at all, Narlena. I am from another dimension, and I came here because a computer was attached to my brain and altered it so that I can now see and sense your dimension and speak your language.»

  «A lakhyr was attached to your brain? Oh, that is wonderful! Then your people also must have the Dreams. You will be very much at home here in Pura.» She seemed almost about to clap her hands for joy. Then her face fell. «But I do not know if there is an empty vault in working condition for you. Even if there is, I do not know how to set one for anybody but myself. We would have to find a vault master who can analyze any person and adjust a vault for him so that he can have the kind of Dreams he wants most of all. But there are not very many of the vault masters, and we would have to find one of them Waking. I am afraid you will have a long Waking. But there are things we can do during the Waking.» There was a mischievous glint in her eye as she said the last sentence.

  Blade nodded absently. His mind was divided between relief at the casual way she had accepted his tale of coming from another dimension and mystification at her constant talk of Dreams and vaults and Waking. Obviously, these had some key role in her society-or in what her society had become. Although Blade had his suspicions, he wanted to learn more precisely what she was talking about.

  He shook his head, as if in bewilderment-and he was not entirely faking the bewilderment, either. He said, «Narlena, in my dimension we do not have Dreams. I use the computer only to travel between dimensions. When I am at home, I am waking all the time, except when I am sleeping naturally.» He wondered if that would make any sense to her. It hinged on the accuracy of his guesswork about the nature of Dreams and Waking.

  Apparently his guess had been right. Narlena shook her head in sadness and said, «So you have nothing but the Little Dream that is written about in our old books? The ones that show the time before we discovered the real Dreams and how to have them all the time except when we Wake for our tests?»

  Blade was beginning to have some vague glimmering of what Narlena was talking about. But her brief speech still sounded strange, as though every third word were in a language he did not understand. Continuing to look bewildered and mystified he said, «Narlena, I do not understand. You seem to be sorry for me and my people because we only have what you call the Little Dream. How is that different from the real Dream that you say your people have?»

  Narlena’s voice took on an indignant edge. «I do not just say my people have the real Dream-we do! For a hundred years and more, almost two hundred, in fact, we have had them whenever we wanted. Since the Wakers began taking over, a hundred years ago, we have all been Dreaming all the time except for when we also Wake to take our tests. It is the greatest achievement of our people.» There was a note of defiance forced into that last sentence, which made Blade wonder if she really believed what she said.

  He still did not entirely understand what she was saying, but now only one out of every four or five words was unintelligible, and the glimmerings of understanding were brightening. If by the Wakers she meant the roving marauders that now ruled the city above, he thought he had a fairly clear picture of what she was talking about. And also a picture of the catastrophe that had befallen her people, a catastrophe brought upon them by their own mastery of science.

  But Narlena was looking at him again the way she had earlier, speculatively, curiously. Her eyes caressed him, and her body moved involuntarily with a gentle swaying motion. She-and how many other of her people? — still had a yearning to experience a physical reality during their Wakings. Endless years of Dreaming couldn’t provide everything.

  He grinned broadly at the thought. Narlena interpreted this as a welcoming grin. She rose from her lotus position in a single graceful motion, walked over to him, and stood looking down at him. Then she flowed down onto him. Her nimble fingers began stroking and caressing him, occasionally drifting downward toward his genitals.

  Even if there had been any reason for Blade to hold back his arousal, he would have found it almost impossible to do so. Those small hands were maddeningly skilled and maddeningly arousing as they did their gentle dance along his neck, down his back, across his chest and stomach, and then between his legs. He became fully, massively erect.

  Now his own hands began tracing their own pattern on her limber body. They traced each joint of her spine under the petal-smooth skin of her back, cupped the firm buttocks, and wandered over the smooth, glistening thighs to the blue black pubic triangle, already turning damp as her arousal mounted in time with his. Then his hands moved upward, over the flat belly, and his palms rose up under the small, firm breasts, feeling the nipples harden into stiff little rods, hearing her moan, and seeing her bite her lip and begin a slow writhing. Still writhing, she lifted herself and lowered herself down onto his upstanding organ, enveloping it in her slick, almost dripping canal. She stiffened as he entered her and began a slow up-and-down motion, lifting herself slightly with her hands pressing down on his thighs.

  Her movements were slow and steady at first, but they quickened as she, pushed herself faster and faster toward climax. She could hardly have been more absorbed in her own pleasure if Blade had not been there at all. Her eyes were closed and only flickered open briefly when he put his arms around her and began using his muscular arms and shoulders to help her rise and fall. Her control slipped away. Her hands ceased their pushing and began a frantic and uncontrolled drumming on his skin.

  She climaxed, jerking and writhing uncontrollably in rapid succession. Then she sagged in Blade’s arms. No longer worried about his endurance or her satisfaction he kept raising and lowering her until his own fierce pulsing came.

  His throat dry and chest heaving, he lowered the inert Narlena to the floor and lay down beside her for a moment. Then he opened the vault door, went out to retrieve his weapons, closed the door behind him, and lay back down. For the time being he had reached as much comfort and safety as he seemed likely to get in this dimension. Before going out again, he would have to get Narlena to fill in all the blank spaces in his picture of what had happened and was happening in the city of Pura. But he could do that just as well after they had slept. It was time for a Little Dream, he thought with a wry grin
that stayed on his face as he dozed off.

  Chapter Six

  Blade and Narlena slept snuggled against each other on the fur-covered floor of her vault. When they awoke, many hours later, Blade knew that in the city above it must be well into morning. But as much as he wished to see and explore Pura by daylight, he wished even more to explore the mystery of its people and their Dreams. Narlena was willing enough to talk, and Blade was more than willing to listen to the long answers she gave to his brief questions. In a surprisingly short time all the gaps were filled in, and he had a complete picture of the fate of Narlena’s people, at least as she understood it. While they were talking, Narlena produced breakfast by pressing a button in what she called a foodmaker and served the result. The soft, sweet, crumbly breadlike cake and the almost tasteless liquid were blatantly synthetic and depressingly dull.

  Some five hundred years before, the people of Pura had discovered the basic art of stimulating the senses by using direct brain-computer links. Blade wondered if in the process of discovering this art and learning to control it, they had sent any unsuspecting subjects off into other dimensions. But they had learned to control the linkages bit by bit, and that had been the foundation for Pura’s greatest-and last-achievement.