"What do you people of Earth do for entertainment?"
"Well, we talk, or we dance, or we play games, ride horses, take walks in the country, see a show--anything anyone else does, I guess."
"No one else does any of that, because d.e."s a lot better. You know anything about dreams, Smith?"
"A little. Very little. They"ve always been something of a mystery on Earth."
"Well, do you read or watch the telios on Earth?"
"Of course. But it"s strictly local stuff on Earth. That"s why I"m here."
"Well, if it"s fiction, why do you read?"
"Excitement I guess. Interest, suspense. I watch the hero, I struggle with him, succeed when he does if the book"s a good one--"
"Exactly. You go into empathy with him. Smith--how would you like to do that--with me?"
"Hunh?"
"Take a dream. I dream it, not you. It"s a good one, under control. A vivid dream, more real than life itself in a lot of ways, emotions highlighted, maintained, increased--and exactly what I want to dream because I know we"ll both like it.
"I dream it, not you. But you feel it with me. You grow tired of your own thoughts, so you switch in on someone else"s. Control there.
Gorgeous dreams, fantastic dreams, even horrible ones, if both would like it. Complete empathy--in a dream world.
"Then later, when you"re experienced, you dream and I emp. How does it sound, Smith?"
He smiled. "Not much privacy. But I"d be a liar if I said I wouldn"t want to take a peek at your dreams, Geria. It sounds fine."
Geria laughed softly, a lilting feminine sound. "It"s a little more private than that, provided I know what I"m doing. There"s a control. I can dream what I want, and can restrict it. You"ll see."
Smith very much wanted to see. Almost, he forgot about Jorak and the psi-power. But briefly in his mind he saw the black uniformed giant from Wortan, felt again the flailing Kard raised high overhead, saw accusation in the woman of Nugat"s eyes....
They lay on two adjacent couches, Smith and the woman of Bortinot. A bare cubicle of a room with just the two couches in it. A door, now closed, led into a room in which they had received their instructions.
But Smith hardly had listened. Geria knew the game well enough, and he"d let it go at that. The rasping voice of the female instructor had annoyed him, anyway, but he noticed that she was a woman of Bortinot, not beautiful like Geria, but of her planet nonetheless.
"Psi-powers again," Geria told him. "Hypnotism and telepathy mostly.
You"ll see...."
Something which looked like a candle-flame seen through a long dark tube flickered from the ceiling. It came closer, steadied, flickered no more.
Smith couldn"t draw his eyes away from it.
"You"re asleep," Geria told him, matter-of-factly.
He was. Not really, because in sleep there was a lack of awareness. But he could not move and everything was dark and he could only think.
He felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. A mind without a body, in complete darkness. The tingle of awareness which you hardly regard as such because it always is with you was gone. Nothing.
And then it returned. He felt his heart beating again. His ear itched and he scratched it. He shifted his left arm which had fallen asleep.
Oddly, the ceiling light had moved. It had been just to the right of center--now it was just to the left, flickering again, retreating. It was gone.
He turned over on his left side, sleepily, contentedly--on the brink of real sleep. Geria knew what she was doing. He"d rest. He looked--at his own sleeping figure!
Madness toyed with the edges of his mind, gained inroads, made him look again. The silent figure to his left--himself. He raised his hands, felt the hair, long, flowing, billowing about his head--looked down, could see the gentle rounded rise of breast.
A voice nibbled at consciousness, repeated itself, became clearer, laughing: "_We will go to sleep now, Smith. How does it feel to be here with me? Let"s dream. Dream--_"
The voice rea.s.sured, and Smith-Geria relaxed, slept.
_He, Geria of Bortinot--really she, then--stood on a hill. A weathered hill and aged, on a frigid world where winds of winter raged and howled and battered mountains into submissive mounds. Fearful place, grim and almost dead it was--and yet he liked it. Smiling, he stood atop the hill and bade the tempest strike. The winds hurled him headlong and he stumbled, but he felt elated, wild and free, part of the elements that did battle there in that country of the weathered hills. And there were others and they were men. They came up the hill and they tried to take him in their arms, strong men and fair, but he ran laughing with the wind. His ident.i.ty faded in that wind, was torn to tatters by it--left only was Geria of Bortinot, her feelings, her thoughts, but his awareness.
She stumbled, fell, turned over and over, much too slowly. Winds still howled, but above her here at hill"s bottom. Wraiths of fog swirled in eddying gusts, came closer and faded, appeared again and swept away.
She cried a name because the fog brought her an image and the name and the image were one._ "Smith of Earth, of Earth, of Earth...." _And he came to her, this image, on a charger, an animal much too thick through the shoulders to be a horse, with three pairs of legs. Low out of saddle he leaned, graceful, handsome bald head pink with excitement. He clutched at her, lifted her through the mists, above them. The six-legged horse soared high, above the hills, above the winds, carried her higher and higher. Smith stroked her yellow hair, kissed her. She tingled...._
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"Wake up Smith! Up, come on now, the cla.s.s is over for today."
He stirred. The dream--G.o.ds of Earth, what a dream!
"Well, how"d you like it? See what I mean about dream empathy, Smith?
Beats everything, doesn"t it?"
Smith hardly heard her. They say dreams fulfill wishes, they say--and what was it Geria had dreamed? Suddenly, it was very important to Smith, terribly important, more important than anything, because he remembered, without knowing how or why, what had happened yesterday on the crags.
"Geria," he said. He tried to make his voice soft, but it boomed loudly, almost startled her.
"What"s the matter?"
"Nothing. Why nothing is the matter. You remember yesterday on the crag, Geria?"
She nodded.
"And your dream--Geria?"
Again, the casual nod.
"Geria, I--I love you. I think I want to marry you. I think--"
He stopped. She looked at him for what seemed a long time but really was only a few seconds, and then she grinned. There was nothing malicious about it, Smith knew, just a grin. It spread, and the woman of Bortinot began to laugh. Softly at first, but soon she was laughing very hard and Smith felt foolish. He wanted very much to be out of there, any place but in that room, but he did not know for sure that he knew how to operate the door.
"Oh, Smith, Smith," she said, "if you could see yourself now. But I suppose I deserve it. I planted the suggestion, you fought it, now you"re pretending. All right, I admit defeat. But stop now; you should see your face."