Dimension Of Dreams rb-11 Page 5

  About two hundred years before, they had discovered the methods of recording and simulating specific sets of sensations. Soon it became possible to put these sensations together into complete stories, which were incredibly complex and totally realistic as long as one was hooked up. They could satisfy any possible or impossible fantasy that one could harbor in one’s waking mind.

  But even then Pura was not doomed. No matter how much of one’s sleeping hours one spent Dreaming, one still had to spend a certain amount of time awake for eating, washing, exercising, and generally carrying out the necessary business of staying alive. Even those wealthy enough not to need jobs could not spend all their time Dreaming.

  Then somebody invented the life-sustaining gas and all the life-support equipment that went with it. It became possible to spend years on end in the Dreams; the periods of Waking were reduced to only a few days to «test» one’s body for signs of physical deterioration.

  Within a few years everybody was working just enough to be able to spend the rest of the time Dreaming. A man would work six months, then go to a public Dream House, climb into a vault, and for the next six months be a wandering minstrel or knight from the city’s ancient history or travel among the stars as one might in the far future. The only people who had to work all the time were the Dream-builders, who developed and recorded new Dreams, the vault masters, who, prepared the vaults, and the life-support technicians, who maintained and improved the machinery that kept the Dreamers alive and healthy.

  Pura had been wealthy, and few if any had ever gone hungry or homeless. But nearly two-thirds of the city’s population could scrape together enough money for only an occasional Dream session, no matter how hard they worked. They resented this. As the wealthy slipped more and more into their Dream worlds and cared less and less about running Pura, the poor became discontented, even violent. The security forces were enlarged, and their salaries were increased to handle this threat. But as soon as the security troops had enough money to become full-time Dreamers, the city was left to the gangs that were beginning to be known as Wakers.

  Within a single generation Pura had sunk from a flourishing city to a decaying jungle, where men reduced almost to the level of wild animals stalked and slew each other and any Dreamers bold or curious enough to venture out into the real world. Health, transportation, and the food supply broke down-famine and epidemic raged unchecked.

  It was becoming increasingly difficult to carry out any major project. Before it became completely impossible, however, the leaders of the Dreamers faced the crisis and came up with what they expected to be a solution. Build Dream vaults, one for each willing and interested person, with life-support equipment, recorded dreams, food, and power to last for centuries. Make the vaults so strong that nothing short of the weapons of the ancient and half-legendary War Period could damage or open them, and put them all over the city. Then each person could climb into his private vault and stay there until the Waker gangs in the city above ate each other up and it was safe to come out. The life-support equipment and power supply had become so reliable that one needed to Wake for one’s tests only every twenty years or so.

  Not all of the people who could afford private vaults and planned decades of Dreams went along with the scheme, of course. Some packed up as many of their possessions as they could carry and left the city. On foot or in the few vehicles still running, they headed for the south in search of new land and a chance to find a new and better city. These were the bravest of the Purans, but there were not many of them. Even those who did not spend most of their time in Dreams had long since become so completely urbanized that they were like fish out of water in the country beyond. That explained the abandoned villas and also the reaction of the woman who, had preferred suicide to flight across the bridge and out of the city.

  Others among the wealthy tried to join the Wakers. Many of them were killed; the hatred of Wakers for Dreamers was intense. But some had survived, and according to what Narlena had heard, their descendants were often among the leaders of the Wakers. Blade wondered if that was the explanation behind the discipline and skill of the Wakers he had seen in action on the bridge.

  However, tens of thousands of Purans had elected to lock themselves in their Dream vaults with the automatic timing devices. set to Wake them at intervals of twenty years until the chaos in Pura had died. They had entered their Dream worlds, confident that in one or at most two Dream cycles the city would be theirs again.

  That had been nearly a century and five Dream cycles ago. Each time the Dreamers wandered, half-dazed, out of their vaults to see what had become of Pura, they found it still overrun by bands of Wakers. Worse, those gangs preyed on the Dreamers as viciously as ever, killing some, enslaving others, looting any vault they found open. Over the century, many thousands of Dreamers had been killed or enslaved. Each time their Waking came, there were fewer of them, and those bold enough to go out onto the surface were in greater danger than before. Eventually, Narlena said, swallowing, her face set hard and white as she spoke, the marconite crystals in the vaults would be exhausted and the life-support systems would fail. Then the Dreamers would have to awake to face the Wakers, or if they were lucky, die in their sleep.

  «What is marconite?» Blade asked Darlena. That was something she hadn’t mentioned before, but she made it sound vital to the survival of the Dreamers and their vaults.

  «Your people do not have it?»

  «Would I ask you if we did? What is it? You say that it comes in crystals?»

  Instead of answering directly, she went over to one wall and opened a small orange panel. Behind the panel lay a small enamel-walled niche, lit by a bluish-tinged lamp that went on automatically as Narlena opened the panel. Blade could see that most of the niche was filled with four milky-white cylindrical capsules, about the size of beer bottles and made of something that looked like plastic with crystalline striations running through it. Each capsule stood on a metal base, and from the upper end of each one, two thick black wires ran back into the wall. Narlena pointed at the capsules and said, «That is the marconite for my vault. Each of the vaults started out with forty capsules. I change them each time I Wake.»

  Blade stared. He could not have kept his excitement concealed if he had wanted to. Those white crystalline capsules were the sole power source for everything in this vault for a period of twenty years! A method of energy storage-or perhaps energy generation? — that made the most far-out experimental notions in Home Dimension look like kindergarten toys. He recalled the submarine that he and Annie had seen surfacing in the channel. With half a dozen capsules of marconite crystals wired to its electric motors, it could achieve the same endurance as an atomic submarine at a fraction of the cost, space, and weight. But that was only the beginning of the possibilities that would be open to England if he could bring back a sample of marconite-and if England’s scientists could find the secret of the marconite and a way of duplicating it. Energy supply was the stumbling block that had crushed all hopes of hurling English technology decades ahead to Dimension X technology. Sooner or later, however, one of Blade’s samples would yield its secrets, and then Project Dimension X would have repaid its cost a hundred times over.

  But Home Dimension’s problems were in Home Dimension, and Blade was here in Narlena’s Dream vault in a basement in Pura. He knew that if he did not want to face the alternatives of either fleeing into the countryside or living a hunted existence in the city, constantly on the watch for Waker bands, he was going to have to find more allies among the Dreamers. There would certainly be a good many of them up and around, and more than usual this year, since a Dream cycle was ending. But could he get to them before the Wakers picked them off or they recoiled in horror from the spectacle of their ravaged city and retreated to their vaults? He would need Narlena’s help for that. And how could he explain to this woman, who apparently saw the goal of life as longer and better Dreams, that her way of life was bringing her and her city to destruction? She-
and hopefully others-recognized that there was danger. But did any of them recognize how great it was? If the Wakers ever began a systematic campaign to sweep up the Dreamers as fast as they crept out of their vaults, the Dreamers would be decimated long before the marconite ran out. Barbarism would plague Para for centuries to come, until the Wakers painfully pieced together and applied all the knowledge that had died with the Dreamers.

  Blade was a hard, practical man of action, not a professional or even an amateur do-gooder. But ever since his stay in Royth and his efforts to save it from the pirates, he had been particularly aware of how much he might do for and learn from the people he traveled among. He was only one man, but he was an intelligent and well-trained one. More often than not he could see a people’s crisis, from an angle that they themselves had not considered. Often he had some skill that they needed. So now he looked for occasions to help, as well as for things to learn or take.

  Of course, it was inevitable that he would become deeply involved in whatever crisis was facing his hosts-and in the battle, murder, sudden death, and court intrigues that went along with them. And he had to watch his step not only to stay alive but also to make sure that he was really aiding the «better» side, if not a «good» one. This meant developing an ability to quickly size up crises affecting a whole society. Blade occasionally found ironic amusement in the fact that he seemed to have been turned by circumstances into an amateur sociologist. But he had always been willing to develop any skill that might help him in his work, however peculiar that skill might seem. He was a professional, had always been one, would always be one. Now he was going to apply those professional skills to the problem of awakening the Dreamers of Pura and permanently putting to sleep as many Wakers as possible. The situation in Pura, however, did not require that much in the way of analysis. A one-eyed man could have reached the same conclusions as Blade. The problem was that all the Purans seemed to be blind.

  He turned to Narlena, ready to fire a few pointed questions at her, but found her wriggling toward him across the fur. Then she was on his lap, her arms going around his neck and her lips coming up to meet his. He bent to embrace her and support her. There would be time enough later for all the arguments he would need to convince her to help him. He wondered how many he would have to use.

  Chapter Seven

  While drifting off to sleep after their lovemaking, Blade hit on what seemed a good way of showing Narlena what was happening to her city and her people: take her out into the city, through it, even out into the country if possible. The Dreamers who wandered around most freely during their Wakings apparently only went out at night. Did their long years in the vaults make them light-sensitive, or was it psychological? Did the darkness make it possible for them to continue living in a lesser sort of Dream world, even during their Waking? Perhaps. But it certainly made them easier prey for the night-prowling Wakers. Blade knew that if he could get just a few thousand-or possibly even a few hundred-of the Dreamers organized and willing to move by day, he would have a powerful force to hurl against the Wakers.

  To move, and also to fight by day. Teaching them to fight would be an even knottier problem than persuading the Dreamers to give up their shelter of darkness. He had already asked Narlena why the mobs of the poor had been able to make such rapid progress against the security troops. Didn’t the security troops have much better weapons? Hardly, she had replied-there had been no wars in Pura for centuries. The art of making any weapons more advanced than clubs and swords and spears was gone, although there were books and tapes in the secret libraries of the scholars. And the people of Pura had hoped that with the weapons, the knowledge of war and violence had also vanished into history and legend. Blade laughed grimly at that. He had pointed out that people are quite willing to fight and quite able to kill if they think there is something worth fighting over-as the Wakers obviously did. Obviously, that point had never occurred to Narlena. Blade saw the smile vanish from her face and a thoughtful expression replace it.

  But giving back to the Dreamers the ability to fight for their city was not the immediate problem. At the moment there was only one Dreamer who knew and trusted him, and he would have to work on her before she would help him seek out other Dreamers. With this before him, Blade drifted off to sleep.

  After breakfast the next morning Blade checked his weapons while Narlena tried to find better clothes for him. None of hers would even remotely fit him; he was a foot taller than she and proportionately broader. Eventually he went out into the morning, not much better-dressed than he had been when he came into the cellar two nights before. He wore one of her kilts, sliced into two pieces and wrapped around his waist, as an improvised loincloth and two of her tunics roughly tied together as an equally improvised cloak. More strips cut from yet a third tunic bound his feet. Blade knew that he looked more like a stage beggar than a warrior, but at least this raggle-taggle outfit would help keep the wind out and the dust off.

  When he reached the surface after clambering over the pile of rubble in front of the door to stand in the street, there was neither dust nor wind. The storm that had driven him into the shelter of Narlena’s building had deposited the dust so, that the abandoned buildings and even the scattered and piled rubble had a fresh, clean look in the morning light. And the air in the street was as still as it had been in the cellar. A faint undernote of coolness told of a chilly night just ended and of one yet to come. Climbing the pile of rubble, Blade saw that all signs of the first night’s battle were gone. Then he scrambled back down, reentered the building, and descended the stairs to Narlena’s vault.

  Narlena was still nude. She stretched catlike when she saw him and giggled at his appearance. «Anyone who sees you, you will not need to fight them. They will be laughing so hard, they will not be able to do anything to you.»

  «Possibly. But I prefer to rely on these.» He hefted his spear and sword. «The Wakers are not just enemies in a Dream. They are real, and if we meet any we will need real weapons to kill them.»

  Narlena caught his use of the word «we.» The gaiety vanished from her face and voice. «You want me to go out with you? In the daylight? Why?»

  «To see the real world, Narlena. To see it and feel it, without being afraid of the Wakers. They sleep by day. You told me so yourself.» He was speaking in short, simple sentences, keeping his voice low, as if he were trying to reassure a frightened child. And Narlena looked like one, that was for sure. She was pale; her lower lip trembling in spite of the efforts she was obviously making to control it, her hands clenched. The thought of being out in the real world under the light of day apparently frightened her more than the danger-even the near certainty of encountering Wakers by night.

  «No,» she said in a voice that was nearly a moan. «No. I can’t. You-what are your people like, that they do not fear the light?»

  «We do not Dream, Narlena. I have told you that before! Your people fear daylight only because you have all Dreamed so much that you have grown weak, weak and silly!» The anger in Blade’s voice was not entirely feigned. He reached down, caught her by both arms, and jerked her to her feet. He snatched up her clothes with one hand, holding onto her with the other, and said, «You are going to come with me and look at your city in the daylight. Perhaps then you will see what has happened to it, what your Dreams have done to it!» He scooped her feet out from under her and lifted her in his arms as easily as he might have lifted a child, then strode out of the vault and toward the stairs to the surface.

  Narlena lay passive and rigid in his arms as he climbed the stairs and scrambled over the rubble that lay piled across the door. Once outside and facing south, toward the bridge and the open country beyond, Blade lowered her to the ground and stood holding her with his arms crossed over her breasts. He held her tightly, keeping her facing toward the country her people had abandoned in favor of their Dreams.

  For several minutes her eyes remained closed and her breathing so shallow that Blade began to wonder if the shock of
being dragged out into the feared daylight had done her some real physical harm. Then her breathing grew stronger, and her eyes, after a few preliminary tentative blinks, opened and stared out across the rubble, the overgrown bridge, and the green hills to the blue sky above. He felt her shiver and tremble in his arms.

  «There is so-so much to it,» she said in a small, uncertain voice.

  «What do you mean-so much? This is nothing unusual. I have seen days far more beautiful than this. (He certainly had. An April day at his Cornish cottage, with Zoe laughing beside him in the grass until he bent over and stopped her mobile red lips with a kiss that rapidly moved on to other things, with the scent of grass and lilacs, the distant rumble of the surf on the rocky foreshore. .) Your Dreams must be very silly if they can’t give you anything like this.»

  «They can’t. They don’t try to. They give you so much-so much. .»

  Blade suspected that she was trying to say «more» but couldn’t quite manage it. Instead she fell silent, then raised her head and began looking about her. Confident that she could stand by herself, Blade unclasped his arms from around her and stepped back a pace. He let her turn freely in all directions as her eyes roamed about the distant landscape, the sky with its drifting white clouds, and the city all around her. At that point he saw her turn pale again and tremble so hard that for a moment he thought she was going to collapse. Seeing her city in the glare of full daylight with no darkness to soften the harsh outlines of what it had become was something new for her.

  She did not fall, but it was several minutes before the trembling stopped. Licking dry lips, she spoke. «What have the Wakers done to Pura?»

  «This wasn’t the Wakers, most of it,» replied Blade. «Most of it was time-all the years when you and your people lay Dreaming in your vaults instead of using the Dreams the way my people would-to rest after finishing all the day’s business. The Wakers would never have become so strong or so numerous if you Dreamers hadn’t made the way so easy for them.»