Grimoire X

 

Andre the Librarian hosting "Story Time" at the Cleveland Public Library ~ 1948

 

"Come on In! . . .Take a Seat! . . . and Settle Down! . . ."

 

As the Ghost of Andre shares with you a tale by one of the leading story tellers of the past century.

Once a Month (on the 1^st) We are going to post an original story by Andre Norton

During the showcase period you will be able to read it here free of charge.

Many were only published once.

 

So, it's a sure thing that there's going to be a few you have never heard of.

The order will be rather random in hopes you return often.

 

Happy Reading!

 

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Nightmare

by Andre Norton

I

"But I know nothing of this sector." The youngest man in the room squirmed slightly in his easirest, as if that half-reclining seat, intended for maximum comfort was now giving more than minimum unease.

"Which is precisely why you are necessary for the operation," came a cold-tinged reply from one of the three facing him, the Trystian whose feather crest held the slight fading of age.

"A Terrian of a wealthy clan, touring this sector." man to the left elaborated, "could visit Ty-Kry, order a dreamer's services without comment or questions being asked in the wrong places. It is well known that our multi-credit class are ever avid to try new experiences. Your background would be impeccable, of course."

Burr Neklass shrugged. He had never had any quarrel with that department of the service. Any background they supplied could be combed and recombed with impunity for the one using it. He would be provided with a life history dating back to the moment of his birth and it would be a flawless one. That was not the base of his present uneasiness.

Being who and what he was, he now came out frankly with that basic argument.

"l am not an Esper."

"You were chosen for that very reason," Hyon returned. "Anyone testing Esper, and do not consider for a second that they will not investigate you thoroughly, would have no chance.”

"So I'm just bait." Again Burr hunched his shoulders against the easirest. "And it appears very expendable bait."

Grigor Bnon, the only true human on that inner council, smiled. It seemed to Burr there was an implied taunt in the curl of his lips as he did so. Bnon had a reputation, which it was said he delighted in, of being utterly un-human when it came to assignments.

"Very good bait," he said softly now. "According to the record you are just the type meant to trap, whatever it is or however it works."

“Thank you so much, Commander!" Burr snapped. “And what if I say ‘no’?"

Bnon shrugged. '"There is always that, of course. And it is your privilege."

"And you want me to do it." Burr returned silently. "You have been waiting a long time to catch me a hair's space off orders, either way, 'yes' or 'no,' you’ll have me." There was a sour taste in his mouth could have come from biting hard on that realization.

"So I go in without any backman, then what if I turn up dead? Will you know any more than you do right now? You haven't been able to monitor these dreams in any way . . .” His sentence had a slight lift which made it half-question. If they could monitor, get him out before the final fatal minute, that would put a different face upon the whole operation.

"Not in the way you think," the third of facing him spoke first time. Outwardly he was so humanoid that Burr might have accepted him for a Terran-descended colonist. Only his strange pupilless eyes and the fine down which covered the visible portions of his skin named him alien. "But there will be a backup for you. To have another man killed uselessly would avail us nothing at all."

"I am grateful to hear that," Burr put what irony he could in his reply to Corps Master Illan.

Illan appeared not to hear him. "We shall provide the dreamer you know; I have been informed that you were fully briefed, that these dreamers are either hired or purchased from the Hive. On the death of any purchaser, the dreamer must be returned, half of her price being repaid to the clan-family of her owner. If she is rehired, then it is for an agreed-upon time only.

"Osdeve, Lord of Ulay, purchased a ten-point dreamer two years ago. He was in the last stages of kaffer fever. Two days ago he died. This dreamer, Uahach, must now returned to the Hive. It is the general custom that once an out-dreamer so returns, she is not resold for at least a year, since each owner or hirer programs the dreamer to his taste and she must have a rest before such reprogramming.

"However, the Foostmam of the Hive is not one to suffer idle minds. She will allow Hive dreaming for Uahach, providing that the one who purchases the girl's time is willing to accept any dream and does not require a certain briefing.

"You will be a tourist, wanting simply to try a dream as part of your travel experiences. Therefore, Uahach would answer your as well as any other. You have heard of her and can ask for her with an excellent reason . . .”

Hyon paused for breath and Burr shot in his question.

"How did I hear of her if I have never been in Ty-Kry before?”

"Osdeve was off planet three years ago. He visited Melytis. As the person you will be on Ty-Kry you made his acquaintance there. In fact he spoke so much of dreaming that you came to Ty-Kry lured by his stories."

Burr was frowning a little. He had no doubts about their meeting in Melytis, that would be so expertly documented that it would stand now for the truth. But he was puzzled concerning another point.

"This Uahach, how can you be sure of her?"

"She is an agent . . . or will be by the time she returns to the Hive," Bnon explained. "With some plasta buildup she'll be Uahach: she is an Esper and has been undergoing dream study for some time. We had her long before the assignment computer selected you."

And this unknown "she," Burr accepted, was taking even a far greater risk than they expected him to accept. Dreamers were born, though they underwent vigorous training to achieve the status of A or E, ready to guide someone through their imagined worlds.

"Yes, she is one of us," Hyon once more took over. "And her being unattached at this moment is what brought us together. We had to wait for just such a circumstance. Five deaths and no answers!" For the first time the Trystian showed outward emotion. "There is too leading a pattern: two diplomats, an engineer who had made recently a discovery, which left him so wealthy that he was about to set up his own research laboratory, two men of great possessions whose dream deaths brought about almost galaxy-wide confusion. Someone is troubling waters in order to collect the flotsam of such storms."

"Maybe they all had weak hearts . . . I hear that action dreams can be tough to take." Burr suggested, though he did not believe his own words.

Bnon snorted. "You do not Hive-dream if you do not present a certificate of health to the Foostmam on your first visit. They may not follow up what happens to the owner of a dreamer, but one-time dream excursions within the Hive are well supervised so that this sort of thing does not happen. They want no accusation of killing off their clients. It would be ruinous for their business."

"Yet it has happened," Burr pointed out. "Five times."

"Five times within the space of one planet year," agreed Hyon.

"But if these deaths are arranged, aren't they playing it reckless?" Burr mused, more to himself than the other three. "I should think they would be waiting for the authorities to do some investigating."

“The planet authorities," Hyon returned, "have done what they could. But they cannot shut down the Hive, nor are they even allowed to screen the dreamers, that could be fatal. And Ty-Kry is dreamer-oriented. The dead were all from off planet and such as would not cause any local stir. In fact, Villand and Wyvid were both traveling incognito and not officially. But the authorities were enough concerned to call us in, a step which is revolutionary as far as they are concerned, as the locals resent to a high degree off-world contacts. They made the proviso when they did that we were not to appear there officially either, and they will give no open help to any investigation we might start."

Burr grinned without mirth. "Do they know about your planted dreamer?"

"No. And they are not to know either. The Hive has a monopoly on its product. To learn that a dreamer might be created by artificial means would turn the whole planet hostile. There is a religious significance to the existence of these girls and that we dare not meddle with."

"But what would make me so important they would try their game a sixth time?" Burr wanted to know.

"Burr Neklass has become owner of an asteroid which is nearly pure Bylotite," Hyon answered.

Burr's eyebrows lifted in unbelief. "Is there any such Thing?” he asked wonderingly.

“It exists, yes. And it is under the guardianship of the patrol. All rights are now on record in your name. You have no near family, and . . .“ Hyon paused as if to give extra emphasis to what he would say next, "one of your partners in Neklass Enterprises has been approached, very cautiously but with enough seriousness to be understood, to discover whether, at your death, the Bylotite will be included in your general estate. I do not doubt that there is already on record, perhaps not on Ty-Kry as there would be too pointed, a will ready to turn this estate over to whoever makes the highest bid for your life."

"Fine, you do have me well hammered in, don't you?”Burr scowled. "So, I'm good for murder. All right, when do I lay myself all ready and waiting on the Hive altar?"

"You will be briefed at once," Hyon said. “Then you will take your own space cruiser to Ty-Kry. There you will proceed to make yourself very visible as a man of great wealth who wants to try the unusual. I think there will be no difficulty in your finding the Hive welcoming and you will then ask for Uahach . . .”

"And get down to a good death dream," Burr finished for him. 'Thank you, one and all, for this exciting assignment. I shall remember you in my dreams!"

II

Her figure hidden in a dull gray sack of a robe, her hair cut so close to her head that it seemed less than half a finger in length so that the dream helmet would fit more easily, the slight figure sliding out of the carrying chair could have been any age from pre-teen to elderly. Her face was blank of any expression as she moved with the air of one still inhabiting those dreams which were her trade. The guard flung open the door and she stepped into the noiseless, curtained secrecy of the Hive.

As she moved down the central hall her eyes kept their fixed stare, but inwardly she was recognizing that which she had never seen before, but which the intensity of a mind-to-mind briefing had made plain to her. She was not Ludia Tanguly any longer, but Uahach an A dreamer with a ten-point rating. And it had been two years, a little more, since she had left the Hive to which she now returned. Luckily they had been able to so dip into the dreamer's mind that her double was familiar with all she saw, knew well the routine for returning.

Uahach turned toward a door to her right and stood, impassive, waiting for the spy ray to announce her. When the barrier split in two, she entered.

The room was small, containing only two chairs, not easirests but of the archaic hard-seated kind. It would seem that the Foostmam made no concessions of comfort for those who sought an interview. A memory control stood between the chairs, within easy reach of the ruler of the Hive. And there was a blank screen on the wall to one side. While the Foostmam herself sat waiting Uahach's arrival. She gave no verbal greeting, only raised a hand to signify that the dreamer might sit in the second chair.

"You have not come very speedily," the woman observed. "Your late lord died four days ago." Her tone was monotonous. If she meant her words as a question, they did not carry that inflection. And if she offered a reproof for tardiness, that, too, could only be guessed at.

"I was not released by my Lord's heir until an hour since. I then vision-messaged at once," Uahach's own voice held the same absence of meaningful accent. She had let her hands fall limply in her lap, sitting as one who had been under orders all her life.

'True. It was necessary for the Hive to remind the Lord Ylph that our contract was only with his predecessor. His reluctance to release you has been duly noted in the records. Perhaps he had thought to bargain . . . because of your rating and the satisfaction your Lord took in your dreams. We, however, do not bargain. And you are returned. Your dream records have been fed into the archives. For the present you are on inactive status. The Lord Osdeve required much research; it may even be necessary for you to undergo an erase." Now there was a faint shadow of some emotion in the Foostmam's eyes. "The records must be studied to the full, I do not wish to order an unnecessary erase."

Uahach remained outwardly impassive, but inside her instinct for self-defense awoke. Had the Corps Master foreseen that? To undergo an erase would negate everything she was programmed to do. If that happened she would become Uahach in truth.

“There is this . . .” the Foostmam's thin mouth snapped out each word as if she cut it free with a knife. "We are getting more and more of a new type of client, off-worlders who seek sensations strange to them. The lore you studied for Lord Osdeve was largely action adventure. And you might be a Hive dreamer for a length of time, serving these newcomers. They would not find what you had to offer too familiar."

"I am a Ten Point." Uahach said.

"And so above Hive service?" The Foostmam nodded. "It is agreed. Yet you must be rebriefed you are again hired for outside. Be assured that you shall not be downgraded in the least."

"I shall be guided by you in this as in all else," the girl gave the conventional answer. So Bnon had been right, already the first move of her game had been made.

"You are a true dreamer," the Foostmam replied with her conventional dismissal words. "I have given you the Chamber of the Mantled Suxsux. Dial what you may need. Your credit is unlimited."

Uahach arose and raised one hand to touch her forehead, the Foostmam replying with a prefunctory copy of that gesture. To be told that her Hive credit was unlimited meant that she was still rated a very valuable piece of merchandise. As she moved along the hall, ascended the twenty steps to the next floor she was already planning what she must do now. And since the Foostmam had suggested that she was to be hired in Hive service she had every right to start learning all she could.

The library of tapes owned by the Hive was the most spectacular collection of general information gathered anyplace in the galaxy except at Patrol Headquarters. Travelers' tales from thousands of worlds, history, strange stories, anything which could enrich the worlds the dreamers created for their clients, was at the call of those within the Hive. But was there any method of locating the special tapes either of the suspected dreamers had called upon? That was one fact they had not been able to ferret out for her. She knew the names of those dreamers, Isa and Dynamis. Both were action dreamers, neither one supposedly of ten-point rank, and both never hired outside the Hive. Uahach's memories, which had been sifted as well as the Patrol science could manage, had supplied a hazy picture of Isa. Dynamis was totally unknown. She was young, one of the Late Dreamers, whose talent developed enough to be measured only when she entered adolescence and not in early childhood when most of them were found and brought in for training.

Isa had survived the two dreams which had killed her clients . . . but just barely. She was, by all accounts the planet law enforcers passed along, now a near vegetable. Dynamis had had better luck. Though it had been necessary for her to undergo, the Foostmam had sworn, a lengthy period of reeducation.

The dreaming itself wag not too complicated an affair, though it was particular to this world. Linked by a machine which capped both dreamer and client, the dreamer entered into a hallucinatory state in which the client partook of vigorous action, some type of which he selected in advance. He could so return into the past, explore other worlds, venture into the speculative future. If a lengthy dream was desired, both dreamer and client could spend as long as a week so engaged, fed intravenously. And at any point the client could demand to break the dream.

Yet five men had dreamed themselves into death. and had not awakened. Once, perhaps twice, a faulty machine, a weakened heart, or some natural fatality could have occurred, but five were far too many.

The Foostmam had had, as Uahach well knew, every machine tested before the authorities. She demanded, and in this she was backed by those same authorities, certificates of health from every would-be client. And those were the result of examinations which could not be faked. The law in Ty-Kry had no wish to continue a scandal which was growing far too fast for comfort. The dreamers, long in use by the natives, had recently become a prime tourist attraction, the worth of which the rulers of the planet fully recognized.

Yet, in spite of all such safeguards, one dreamer was brainwashed into idiocy and five men were dead. Five men whose deaths could be turned to the credit of others off world. Suspicion was heavy, now there must be proof.

She came to the door bearing the painted design of the fabled creature the Foostmam had mentioned, and knew the chamber to be one of coveted single rooms within this warren. She was, indeed, being shown that her value to the Hive had in no way diminished.

Though the room was considered luxurious by any dreamer who had not been quartered in one of the sky towers of the Lords, it was a small one with few attractions. There was a couch formed of piled cushions covered in dull greens and grays; nothing must distract the attention of a dreamer, lure her attention from her work. Against one wall was a reading screen with a slitted block before it into which any tapes she desired could be fitted. On the opposite wall was a small board with a row of buttons; she could there order the bland, nearly tasteless food high in protein and nourishment which was the usual meal of her kind.

A curtain hung before a small private bathroom. That, too, was gray, as was the thick carpet on the floor. Uahach sat down on the divan, wondering if the Foostmam had some hidden method of viewing the chambers of her charges. That point certainly could not be overlooked, and she must never be off her guard.

There was a thick silence here, not a single sound came from without, though the Hive was crowded. Again the dreamer must be able to study undisturbed by anything outside her own cubicle. Probably they did not find silence oppressive. To them dreaming was life and the world outside those they themselves created did not exist except as a shadowy and uninteresting place.

She went to dial for a drink, accepting the small cup of hot liquid gratefully. Her mouth felt parched and she was aware of that usual reaction to coming danger. The familiar dryness of her tongue and lips, the moisture of her palms were warnings for her to exert the techniques in which she had long been schooled.

Waiting was always difficult. If one could plunge straight into the indicated action, one lost oneself in that. But to have to sit and wait . . . How long before the other player Hyon was putting on the board arrived? She would not even know who he was, nor how much she could depend on him. And she did not like working in the dark. This was far outside of any operation of which she had before been a part. And she found she enjoyed it less with every passing minute.

III

"So I ask for this Uahach."

The Foostmam’s hands rested on the edge of her memory control board. She favored Burr with an unwinking stare so devoid of any personality, he began to wonder if the ruler of the Hive was now caught in some dream herself. Then she spoke, without any warning inflection in her voice.

"You say that the Lord Osdeve spoke of her. Yes, she was on lease to him. But you must understand, Lord, she is still unbriefed in a new series, for she has only returned to the Hive two days ago. You would not be able to choose your subject matter. . . .”

Burr opened his belt pouch, produced a silvery credit plate.

"I'm not asking for a series to be arranged just for me. In fact, I am only curious to see how this dreaming of Ty-Kry works. Any briefing she had had for Lord Ogleve would be all right as far as I am concerned. It is merely that I would like to try it as an experiment, you understand."

The Foostmam’s stare had shifted for several breaths to the credit plate. Burr himself had never handled such before: unlimited credit. a promise to be accepted on any planet where the Council had an Embassy.

"For a single dreaming time," the Foostmam said, "the price is higher, since the dreamer has no security factor the future."

Burr shrugged. "Price does not matter. But I want Uahach. Osdeve had plenty to say about her dreaming when I saw him last."

The Foostmam again favored him with that blank expression. But her hand went to one of the buttons on the small control board and pressed two. A pattern, not a face, flashed on the vision screen. She eyed it and then her hand closed over the credit plate.

"She has not yet gone through debriefing. Very well, if you will accept Osdeve's series, it can done. You have your certificate of health and stability?"

He produced a second piece of perforated plasta. She accepted that to push into a slit on the control board. There was a relay of clicks and the pattern on the screen changed.

"What is the danger in dreaming?" he decided to come openly to the point. As an off-worlder, unfamiliar with the processes of the Hive, Burr believed that he could ask such a question as a matter of routine.

"A ten point A dreamer." the Foostmam returned, "can produce so vivid a dream that its reality entirely grips the client. In such cases any strain on the heart or the mind can prove to be a very serious thing. Therefore, we naturally wish to know that this will not happen. We will have a Medic standing by. But the final choice anywhere in the dream to leave is always for the Client to exercise. If you dislike the dream you will it to end. Since you will be mind-linked with the dreamer, your will instantly records with her and she releases you."

“The danger then must be slight," Burr prodded.

"It has been so." Apparently the Foostmam was not going to say anything about the recent fatalities in the Hive. “When do you wish to call upon Uahach’s services?"

"How about right now?” Burr pressed. "The rest of this Five Days I guest with Lord Erlvin I believe he has made arrangements I cannot alter.”

The Foostmam held his credit plaque between thumb and forefinger. She was again fixed of eyes, but Burr was sure she was no longer studying him, rather thinking deeply.

"Uahach is free, that is true. But there must be our own preparations to be made. At the present all our interior dream rooms are occupied. But if you will chose to return past nooning it can be arranged.

“Good enough." Burr reached forward plucked the credit plate from her fingers. She had continued to hold that as if reluctant to lay it down. He wondered fleetingly just how many such plaques she had ever seen. Galaxy wide complete credit vouchers could not be too common.

He nooned in the best of Ty-Kry’s restaurants. And he ate sparingly, selecting from a list which had been supplied him along with the plaque which had so entranced the mistress of the Hive. All that could possibly be done to ensure his own safety (outside of actually canceling the operation entirely) was accomplished. But he did face the unknown, and a threatening unknown.

When he returned to the Hive he was shown directly to a room occupied nearly to the full extent of its area by two couches. Between them stood the machine of linkage and there was already a girl stretched on the right-hand couch, her face masked past nose level by a helmet. Its twin awaited him. The dreamer was breathing in slow, regular breaths and Burr wondered if she were already asleep.

Two attendants, one of whom wore the insignia of a Medic greeted him and, within moments, Burr was installed on the other couch, blindfolded by the padded helmet. He drew a very deep breath of his own. There was no pulling back now; this was it!

He blacked out with a queasy feeling of whirling out and out through space itself. Then there came a burst of light as if he lay under the warmth of a sun, helmetless and in the open.

Burr sat up slowly, surveying the country about him. He had not expected this . . . this freedom of body, the absolute reality of all he could see. Experimentally he pulled at a tuft of gray-green grass. It resisted and then gave way, so that roots and reddish soil parted company. He . . . this . . . was so real!

Around his present position small hills or mounds arose to make a wall about a cup of lower land in which he crouched. On the top of each was embedded a standing stone, weather-worn, but certainly never so regularly placed by any natural means. The country bore no resemblance to any he had ever seen before.

Burr got slowly to his feet. An A dream promised straight action adventure. This landscape had a certain grim and threatening appearance, but as far as he could see, he was alone in it and there was an absence of any life signs. No bird wheeled overhead, no insect buzzed or flew. This was being on a deserted stage before the curtain arose and the play began.

The nearest of the rounded hills attracted him. From its summit surely he would be able to see more than he could in this hollow. And toward that block-crowned summit he climbed.

The tall mound was covered with grass of the same gray-green shade as the tuft he had pulled. And it was both steep and slippery, so he stumbled and had to clutch at the grass to keep from slipping back into the spot where he had entered this hallucinatory world.

Once on the crest he turned slowly, facing outward, trying to get an idea of the country. The hills with their pillars continued on into what he guessed was the north in an unending series. But to the south there were only a few before they gave way to a wide open land in which were embedded a number of stones, tumbled together in a manner which suggested they were very ancient remains of some building or buildings, long reduced to a rubble, either by time itself or some ancient disaster.

There was a deep, quiet brooding over this stark world. Yet from somewhere came a vibration which could be felt rather than heard. It was almost as if the land itself were breathing, slowly, heavily.

Burr had a desire to shout, to make some sound which would rip away that quiet. He mistrusted all he saw with more than the mistrust which warnings had set in him. This was . . . dangerous, in a way he could not grasp.

His hand went to his belt, or where his belt should have rested, instinctively hunting a stunner such as any prudent man wore in strange territory. But his fingers swept across bare skin and for the first time he looked down at his own body.

He was no longer wearing the rather fantastic suit which had been designed for Burr Neklass, multi-credit man. Instead his body was darker of skin where it was clearly visible. He did have on a pair of breeches of a steel-colored material, seemingly elastic and fitting nearly as tightly as that same skin. On his feet were coverings feeling as soft as if fashioned of cloth, but soled with thickness of a dull red material, while the upper part of the shoes(?) were stitched with glittering red threat to mark each hidden toe plainly.

Above the waist he had two belt straps, not for about his waist, but reaching one over the right shoulder and one the left. Where those crossed on his breast they were united with a palm-sized plate of silver metal in which were set colored stones ranging in shade from a deep red to a brilliant orange. About each upper arm was a wide band of the same silver, one bearing all red stones, the other yellow to orange. It was to Burr the dress of some off-world barbarian, in spite of the obviously fine workmanship, and certainly one he had never seen before.

Movement among the tumbled blocks of the ruins sent him ducking prudently to shelter behind the monolith which stood beside him on the hilltop. For the first time he realized his folly in making so open an appearance there. Something was flitting from cover to cover among the stones, moving so fast he could catch only a confused glimpse of it. He could not even be sure it was humanoid.

There were plainly no weapons furnished him in this dress. Now as he knelt behind the stone, Burr gazed around him for some possible way of arming himself. Finally he pried loose a small rock which he held in his hand.

A usual client of any dreamer was prepared for the nature of the dream, since he indeed ordered it. But Burr must accept the programming which Osdeve had ordered and what had been implanted in the pseudo-Uahach.

Therefore he did not know what to expect, except trouble. And perhaps that was flitting toward him even now.

IV

There was more than one . . . Burr drew a deep breath, his grip on the stone so tight that the rough surface scored his fingertips. One hid behind two blocks still piled one on top of the other, a second moved, with the same fluid speed, more to his right, gone to cover before he had more than an impression of raw color, an acid blue which flashed swiftly among the Stones.

That they hunted him, he somehow knew. Perhaps Osdeve enjoyed this type of thrill . . . chase, choosing, because of the infirmities of his final years, a physical-combat type of dream.

Burr glanced over his shoulder at the procession of mound-hills filing on to the far horizon. He could retreat perhaps, play what he was sure would be a deadly kind of hide-and-seek, through that countryside. But that would only prolong whatever action lay in this dream. No, he would stay where he was until he was sure that the danger ahead was too much for him to handle.

Perhaps they had lost sight of him and their impatience was enough to bring them out. For they were moving again, this time farther into the open. There, some distance from each other, yet in an even line, three oddities stood statue still, as if by freezing they could also conceal their presence.

For an off-world traveler Burr had long lost the ability to be surprised by any alien difference from his own norm. But these were unusual enough to rivet his attention.

It was hard to judge sizes from this distance, but he believed that all three of them were taller than himself. And they were birds, or at least birdlike in form. Their bodies, perched on long, thin legs, were covered with a vivid blue or green feathering (there was one green and two blues) which fluffed into plumes for tails. Their heads were unusually large, bearing tall crests of feathers, large eyes, and murderous appearing bills with points like Harkiman short swords. These outsize heads were connected to the bodies by long and very supple necks which were bare of the feathering, showing instead an expanse of scaled skin.

There was nothing reassuring about them. Rather Barr knew, just as he had been sure he was the quarry of a hunt, that they were deadly enemies to his own kind.

Now they were no longer so still. The green one dropped its head, a fraction, straightened its neck. Thus it pointed directly in Burr's direction. The man began to suspect that perhaps his lingering here had been the wrong choice after all. Yet the speed with which the bird things had transversed the ruins made him sure that any race between them would end fatally for him.

Was this how those others had died? Had they been hunted, not by those feathered monstrosities before him, but by other enemies? He remembered the warning of the Foostmam: he could wake . . .

The green bird took a flying leap which lifted it from among the blocks, moved it as if it were a chess piece in action to the crown of a nearer hill, slightly lower than that on which Burr had taken refuge. No use trying to play hero, this was a time to wake.

Instead of his directive being answered by an instant cancellation of the hunt menacing him, there was a quiver of light through the air. Point deep in the earth beside his sheltering monolith stood a spear, its haft still vibrating a little from the force of the throw which had hurled it there.

Instinctively Burr's hand went out to tighten on that haft. And the same time he was startled by a shout from the north. The head of the green bird snapped around, its intent gaze now in that direction. Burr wrenched the spear out of the ground. But overriding all else in his mind at that moment was that the cancellation demand had not worked!

So, he balanced the spear in one hand. This was it! He could well have been abandoned here. And the pseudo-Uahach who got him into this could not get him out. His stubborn refusal to be downed took over. Someone had thrown him a weapon, though it appeared a very paltry one taken in connection with the size and swiftness of the enemy. And someone had drawn the bird's attention . . .

Burr edged around, trying to keep an eye both on the birds as well as discover who had come to his rescue, if only momentarily. At the same moment the green bird gave vent to the first sound he had heard it make, a shrill, ear-tormenting scream. It sprang directly into the air from the stand it had taken on the other mound.

And, though it seemed wingless and unable to fly, that prodigious leap carried it directly to another mound, this even with the one on which Burr crouched, but still a short distance away. It no longer watched him, rather continued to look to the north.

Though he felt he dared not glance away from its two companions still among the ruins, he had to know who, or what, the thing was now moving to attack.

The body of the bird tensed, its long legs just a little bent. Burr was sure it was about to launch a third spectacular leap. If so, it was a fraction late in coming to that determination. Something whirled through the air. The weighted ends of a long cord snapped about the legs just under the bird's body, the force of their passage wrapping the limbs tightly together. The bird crashed with a fury of squawking, its head bobbing up and down as it tore at that prisoning cord with its wicked bill. As it writhed on the ground a second weighted cord whirled, wrapping about its neck with force enough to completely overset it and bind its head partly to its body.

Burr slued around to watch for its companions. They had vanished, though they might be using the cover of the mounds themselves to come to the aid of their half-bound fellow.

“Come!”

That was no scream from the bird, it was a clearly distinguishable word in everyday Basic. Burr turned again. Two mounds away a figure stood waving him on. The newcomer was cloaked, a hood pulled well down so he could distinguish little more than it had at least a general humanoid shape. And since there was nothing else to do, he obeyed, running down one slope and up the next at the best speed he could manage, while the corded bird continued to screech.

He was gasping as he fought up the last incline. A hand shot out from under the edge of the cloak, caught his arm and jerked him on, so that both of them were able to dart behind the monolith on this mound.

“That whip-round will not hold the qwaker long." Burr was looking eye to eye with a girl. She pushed back her hood, showing hair pulled tight into a clasp high near the crown of her head, flowing freely from that down to her shoulders. And that hair was a dark blue. As with Burr the skin she bared as she shrugged the cloak back on her shoulders to free her arms was dark brown. And under her slanting blue brows her eyes shone like fiery sparks of orange flame.

Burr balanced the spear thoughtfully. "I would not say this would be too effective either," he commented dryly. "What now, do we run?"

He had no from whence this female had sprung. She seemed to have saved his life for the moment at least. Now she was shaking her head so that upheld plume of hair swished back and forth whispering against her hooded shoulders.

"That is what they wish. They can move faster than any man. No, we change . . .”

“Change what," he repeated.

"Change our dream site. Give me your hand!" Her fingers closed about his in a grip which had no gentleness in it. With the other hand she made a sweeping gesture.

The world reeled and Burr closed his eyes to fight nausea, for this instability was outside of any state of consciousness he knew. When he made himself look once more he was standing on a beach of yellowish sand against which washed, with turgid slowness, a vast body of water which might even be a languid sea. But his hand was still clasped in hers and he caught what might be a sigh of relief. Then she dropped her hold moved a little away.

"So . . ." she said as if to herself, “so far that they cannot alter.”

"What is all this?" Burr asserted himself to demand, and his voice came out almost embarrassingly loud above the slight whisper of the wavelets.

"Listen," she turned a little to fix him with a very direct gaze, "they have us locked somehow. When you tried to break, I could not make it. Do you understand? They have us both locked in this dream, and it is only partly out of Uahach's memories. The ruins were hers . . . and the qwakers. They actually exist, or did exist, on Altair IV. But they are not hostile. Now . . .”

"Uahach’s memory," Burr caught the part that he understood the first. "Then you are . . .”

She laughed harshly. “I am your backup, the dreamer. But I am now caught in my own snare. You gave the signal to wake, I would have obeyed. But there was a barrier. However, they did not, as least yet, manage to inhibit movement within this dream. We are now here." she gestured to the beach, "instead of dodging qwakers back on those hills. I do not know if they can control us within the dream, or just keep us here. But we dare not count on any safety."

Burr tightened hold on the spear haft. He understood her well enough. They were caught in this exceedingly real dream and at present there was no escape. "Can you keep doing this . . . move us around if they threaten us?"

She shrugged. "Some. I can call on Uahach's memory in a little. But if they force me to reach the end of those, then . . ." she shook her head. "Beyond her memory I have no pattern to follow. I knew of this sea in this particular dream. There are perhaps four other sites we can switch to."

"And after that," he finished for her, "we will be really Trapped?”

Slowly she nodded, and echoed him. "Really trapped."

V

Burr examined the point of the spear which he still held. The metal was three-ridged, though dull of color. He had been schooled in the of such barbarian arms as the sword, dagger, and primitive weapons which fired projectiles. But he had never attempted to use such as this before.

"You know this dream," he said slowly, "what is the pattern Uahach set in it for Osdeve? Can you see that ahead enough so that we will know what might come up next?"

"So far it is the same, as to background, even to the qwakers. However there are subtle alterations. The qwakers were meant to be hunted, not to hunt. Osdeve enjoyed such hunts. Here . . .” she hesitated. "Be warned---he was dreamed here to meet with Sea Rovers and join them on an expedition against the ancient sea Lords of the Isles. There were three such episodes within the dream: a hunting of the birds, the sea voyage, and at last the venture to take him to the Tower of Kiln-nam-u. Each has potential danger if the dream does not proceed as it should. Now there is a pressure which I do not understand . . .”

She spoke slowly, a slight frown marking her forehead.

"You understand that you are now a different personality. Your name is Gurret and you are the Warrior of the Right."

Burr scowled. "How much of this . . ." he began.

"The dreamers create a form of reality," she struck in before he could complete his question. "You are a part of this world, which is an ancient time on Altair IV, yet not quite that either, since each dreamer adds her own touches. I am Kaitilih, a War Woman of the Left. Traditionally we would have been enemies. But it seems that Uahach altered that point also. By her plan we are united on a quest whereby, in the manner of legends on each world, we must find certain things. Having these in hand we are to return to the Three Towers and there she smiled faintly, "l gather from dreamer memories our reward would be spectacular. Of course, even though there was a strong element of risk in this dream, Osdeve was at no time in great danger, just enough to satisfy his need for the action he craved. But now, with the alterations, I cannot foresee what may lie ahead within the general frame of the original dream."

"If we are warriors," Burr returned. "Why no real weapons?”

"Because this quest was meant to be a testing. I carried the spear, the whirling cords, but neither was used. It was set on you to go bare-handed."

"You snapped us out of that attack. Can you dream up a stunner, or something better than this?" Burr banished the spear.

Slowly she shook her head. can add nothing of my own, only use the material provided from Uahach’s memory. You know I am not a trained dreamer. And . . .” she turned her head to look up and down the deserted beach, "there is pressure on me. There is someone else who meddles and changes so subtly that I cannot trace that interference to its source. Just as the hunt in the hills was reversed. I believe we can look for other reverses to come."

"Fine!" Burr snapped. "Best if we stuck it out right here while you try to break the dream."

"We cannot halt the flow of action," the dreamer replied. "We have to play the pattern through to the end."

Burr knew she was speaking what she believed to be the truth. So roles were reversed so far in the dream. Might they then take it that that would continue?

'Two more pieces of action then. What should they be?"

"You are to light a beacon of the drift," Kaitilih, as she had named herself, motioned toward the bone colored, sea-cured wood which was caught among the shore rocks. "This should be done at twilight. Then a boat will come in from a raider named the Erne. You have already, or Gurret has, contacted the Captain of the Erne, promising him rich loot at the Sea Keep of Eastern Vur. All you want from Vur is the Cup of Blood Death kept in hiding there. There will be great peril, but the Erne will be lucky, getting in and out without dire mishaps. With Cup in your possession you can then bargain with that which holds the Tower of Kiln-nam----"

Burr laughed harshly. “This is like some tale for a child's reading screen! Do you mean that Osdeve actually wanted to live out this wild nonsense?"

"It is not a story, but a legend with a core of truth," the girl corrected him. "Much research was done to provide the very old bones of a hero tale with the proper background and contemporary details. Part of it is history. There was a Gurret who was the first Supreme Arms Lord of half his world. And he gained that position because he pursued such a quest. The dreamers are adept in returning to the past, not only of their own world, but any other planet whose history appeared in their study tapes."

"But if it was . . . is, history, then how can it be altered? I gather I was supposed to do something else upon awaking than run from those qwakers as I did."

"Yes. You were to capture two who would then make you free of their nest place. There in the debris you would find a very old cylinder of metal in which lay a map of Vur . . .”

"It's unreasonable!" Burr interrupted. "I can't believe that any adult would be serious about this . . . even if it is supposed to be history!"

"I assure you Osdeve was. As a man who had lost much use of his own body he craved this outlet as a drug addict craves the powders which will give him entrance to another world for a space. This was Osdeve’s last dream before he died and it was the most elaborate and complicated one Uahach was ever called upon to plot, for he had good warning that he was very close to the end."

"I thought that anyone in poor condition was not allowed to dream." Burr countered.

"An off-worlder, yes. But a native of Ty-Kry is not bound by such rules. Some have chosen to die in dreams."

"But that . . . I thought that was impossible. It was because men died that we are here."

"Then the situation was entirely different. Those victims were off-worlders, known to be in good health, and they had not signed any dismissals. Also the dreams they had selected were not dangerous ones."

Burr shook his head. "But a man can be dreamed to death?"

"If that is his recorded desire. And it must recorded and certified by the Lords in Council, also the First Person of his name clan. It is not perrnitted to any off-worlder."

"All right," Burr knew that she was doubtless well schooled in this dreaming business. "But this dream has been already altered. I did not get that map or whatever that Gurret is supposed to have. What if I don't build the signal fire and the raider does not cone? Will that break the dream?"

"I don't know. Perhaps you will be forced to take the next step.”

Burr dropped down on the sand, balanced the spear across his knees as he sat cross-legged. "That I do not believe."

She seated herself a little away, her head bared to the sea wind which tugged at the length of her hair. "Good enough. We can so test the strength of what stands against us." Her reply was calm.

Some moments later he broke the silence between them with a question:

"You still cannot wake?"

"No. And there is this also,” she hesitated as if considering the wisdom of telling him, then she added: "l am no longer in command."

"What does that mean?"

"Just what I have said. Before was aware of what lay before you . . . us. Now," she lifted a handful of sand and let it shift through her fingers, "I cannot be sure of the future. It is . . . blurred . . . is the best word I can find to describe it. As if you might take one picture and lay another over it so that two different scenes strive to cancel out each other."

“Then there is another dreamer?" Burr asked.

"I cannot be sure. Only that the dream I knew is being overlaid with another and . . .”

She was gone. Burr stared at the place on the beach where she had been sitting. There was still a vague depression in the Sand. But Uahach, or Kaitilih (whoever she was) had vanished before his steady gaze, winked out in an instant!

He got to his feet, still staring, and reached forth with the butt of the spear to touch with caution that slight mark in the sand. No one . . . nothing there!

That this was of her own doing he doubted. The other pattern she had sensed over the dream which had been Osdeve's . . . had that strengthened to obliterate her, take over his own future?

She had saved him from the qwakers. It might be that he was not to be saved from the next ordeal of the ancient legend. But she had said he must light the beacon to bring in the ship, and that he could refrain from doing.

In fact, he was going to get away from here right now! Though he could not travel Uahach's instant roadway, he could move away from what was suddenly a treacherous shore inland, give himself time to find some way he could defeat the unknown dreamer, since he had not the slightest hope, he thought, of his signal to wake being answered . . . except by refusal.

VI

Burr faced sharply away from the sea. Before him the land was wooded by small, dense appearing clumps of what was either very tall brush, or stunted trees. The leafage was thick and dark in coloring, making each copse appear like a blot.

There was something sinister about that landscape. Whereas the mound country had seemed eerie and alien, this gave him the impression of being actively threatening in a manner he could not define.

Also he had to struggle against a very definite and growing compulsion not to head inland. Perhaps the new dream pattern was trying to force him to light the shore beacon, follow the original dream into the raid on Var. Now Burr set himself to a grim battle of wills, fighting his way on.

The same tough grass which had clothed the mounds covered the ground, and the long, sharp edged ribbons of that tangled about his feet, jerked him nearly off balance, as if it were moved to make this journey as difficult as possible. He only knew that he was advancing against the desire which fought him, and for the moment that was all he could hope for.

Such was the foreboding atmosphere of the region ahead that he expected any moment to see some peril leap or slink out of the tree blots avid to do battle.

Choking for breath Uahach-Kaitilih-Ludia (who war she in truth?) swayed back against a support she could feel but not see clearly, and tried to regain full consciousness. She was no longer on the seashore. Nor had she been summarily returned to her couch in the Hive. No, she was back again on the mound where she had entered the dream. Beyond her she saw the man crouched against the monolith, the qwakers about to leap for his perch. Her hand had already gone to her belt to free the throwing cord.

Only . . . this was wrong!

Her thoughts were hard to order into clarity. She must save the man.

But it seemed to her that the whole scene before her quivered. It bad none of the in-depth reality of the first time.

Her will sharpened and her mind awoke fully. No instinctive action . . . This was not her dream, but that other’s. She was being presented not with the man who was her companion in their adventuring, but a dream simulation.

The qwaker leaped, its bill flashed down, transfixed the chest of the man whose fending blow had been easily deflected. She heard his sobbing cry, the triumphant screech of the qwaker. But she was fighting her own battle, the one to tear the false dream to pieces.

Now the whole rippled, fought desperately to remain, tore, like rending cloth, from top to bottom. In that instant she caught a single glimpse of a shadow form far removed from her own place, but operating on what must be another plane. She saw the enemy, but she could neither identify that lurker, nor even discover where was its normal position.

Dying man and qwaker vanished, the mound melted into a mist which thickened about her, so that she breathed faster and faster in frantic gulps of air. For it seemed that she was being enclosed in a monstrous blanket of damp. If she did not fight . . . bring her own natural Esper powers as well as all she had learned from Uahach to the highest pitch she would meet death here.

This was a dream, an illusion. And a spinner of dreams could not be caught in another's dream, not without her full consent. Therefore, she could not be killed unless she accepted the illusion. She forced herself to breathe deeply and slowly, to fight the evidence of her eyes. She was not enmeshed in the enemy's dream, but a part of the one whose pattern lay deep in her own mind! That only was truth!

The mist rolled back. She knew a moment of triumph which she would not yield to. This happening was beyond the knowledge she had acquired from Uahach, beyond any records she had had access to. Only it was plain that, in spite of the enemy's efforts, a hallucination could not held once she knew it for what it was. She was so armed, but what of Burr?

They had been separated deliberately, and she believed that he could well be governed by the other dreamer, strong as his will might be. He had no Esper talent or he would not have been chosen for the part he was playing, he lacked her only weapon.

There was only one hope for them both, she must find Burr. Only together did either of them have a chance.

The mist had rolled back a little, but not enough for her to see the country now about her. She could only be sure that her instant defense, her refusal to be caught in the reaction of the mound duel, had broken the pattern the other had set. She had only one way to find Burr, that was, by concentration of will. They had been on the shore . . . she shut her eyes and concentrated on the shore even as she had on that first move which had so swiftly snapped them from one point of the altered dream to the next. Shutting her mind to every outward sight, every inward fear, she pictured the shore as she had seen it last, and fiercely willed herself to be there again.

There was that sense of weightlessness, of sharp pain. She looked about her. Yes, here was the sand, the turgid wash of tideless ocean, the rocks . . . but one portion of the beach was exactly like the next. And there was no Burr.

She had half expected to see him busied erecting the beacon. For she was sure that the other dreamer still tried to move within the general framework of the original dream. But there was no sight of him.

Swinging around she faced inland. There was nothing pleasant about the landscape. She was chilled by the sight of those trees the outlines of which against the lighter grass had hints of strange shapes. As if the trees could dissolve their nature at will and assume other and far deadlier forms.

Nothing there . . .

Yet she could feel . . . What did she feel? A very vague tugging as if a cord as light as a thread spun out from her body and was anchored to some object out of sight but among those threatening trees. That must Burr and he had left the shore, was striving in his own way to break the threat of the dream by moving directly against the future she had sketched out for him.

That he had been able to do so surprised her. She had been sure that any dream will strong enough to snap her back at the beginning of all action would have had no difficulty in moving Burr to the new pattern. He had made himself vulnerable by playing the role of client, so accepting the original dreaming.

Perhaps it was the struggle she had fought her way through which had served him indirectly, removing a greater part of that unknown other's will from him. Thus he had had a chance to change course.

At any rate they must come together or they would have no chance at all now. For client and dreamer were bound indissolubly together and entered and exited so or not at all. While all she had to follow was that very tenuous of a tugging. Resolutely she began to walk inland.

The sky was darkening. She believed that night was not far off. In the true dream they had spent that night on board the Erne. But this was the new pattern and what dangers could be fashioned to attack any wayfarer in the dark? The rising wind was chill, she drew her cloak more closely about her, but she kept on, hoping that her guide would not fail.

It was getting dark. Burr had avoided the scattered copses of trees, making detours to skirt even the shadows they threw upon the ground. He was very tired, not of the walk itself, but rather from the constant struggle against the will which would enforce his return to set the beacon. That came now in surges of strength which were more disquieting than the first steady pressure, for there were intervals between, as if to encourage him to hope that he had won, then a blow sharper and more insistent. And that other seemed untiring, so that Burr wondered how long it would be before he did turn, and start back to pile the drift, light the beacon, and bring down upon him some fate he was only too sure awaited him in altered dream. Since the qwakers had nearly finished him, he thought he could well expect no friendly Sea Rovers, but perhaps men equipped with steel and a strong desire to have his life.

Still he kept on his feet and moving, in spite of those blows. Then he raised his head and looked more closely at a copse to his left. That was altering in outline . . . There was something very wrong about it.

VII

A figure arose from the half crouch which had made it so resemble the other stands of stunted trees. It was larger than human but the outline was so disguised that Burr was not sure whether be faced some large beast or a sentient being. In the swiftly descending twilight it was only a black bulk. And, oddly enough, as he neared it that bulk appeared to draw in upon itself, shrinking in size that at length it was no taller than he.

Burr gripped the spear tightly. The thing, once it had strode into his path, made no other move. But he had no doubt that it represented an enemy force. At least it was not a qwaker. But what other dangers might walk these lands he did not care to guess. Though he had faced perils without number before, there was that in this adventure which was unlike any operation of which he had been a part. Those had been in a real world wherein he could assess in part the dangers. But this was a country born of will and mind . . . whose will and mind? By her own account not entirely that of the psuedo-Uahach.

Yet now he did not try to evade meeting with the thing awaiting him. It was better to fear directly in the face rather than let his imagination supply him with details.

All at once the figure moved, shrugging away folds of a dead black cloak. There was enough light remaining to show him clearly face and head.

She was back!

A welcoming hail was already on his lips when he slowed to a stop. Though every detail of her features and her movement of head were the same as he had seen before, yet . . .

The girl's hand appeared, waved to him imperiously. Burr remained where he was, only now the pressure which had been against him ever since he had left the shore had veered. Now it would urge him forward to join this Uahach. And that very alteration in the unseen will him off.

"Come." She spoke the same word which had been her first greeting to him. Once more she beckoned and there was a frown, which might have been fostered by impatience, on her face.

He planted the butt down in the ground, tighted both hands upon it, as if by this he could anchor himself against obeying that summons.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Kaitilih." Her voice held the same timber, was no different in his memory from the tone she had used as they sat together on the shore. It was only that persistent forward urge which warned, and in this place he would heed any warning, no matter how small.

"You are not!"

"I am Kaitilih . . . come." It was as if she had not even heard his denial. "Night falls and in it there prowls that which will imperil us. We must find a shelter . . . Come!" Her command was reinforced by a sudden surge of compulsion, so strong it nearly tore him from his spear anchorage, to send him stumbling on.

"You are not she," he repeated, though what if she was? Burr was uncertain, could only depend upon that revulsion stirring within him for a guide.

"I am Kaitilih!" Now she raised both hands to pull back her hood. "Look upon me, fool, and see!"

Burr steadied. Her mistake that. For a moment she had slipped out of her dream disguise. That was not the girl from the shore.

"You are not Kaitilih," he was convinced now.

She stared at him, all emotion smoothed from her face. Then she reacted so quickly that he was only half prepared. Her right hand swung up to hurl something at him. He was aware only of a flash of light, but his trained reflexes had not been lost even in the dream world. For he hit the ground, rolled, and was up again with the practiced swift and fluid motion of an expert unarmed fighter.

Something struck behind him and from that sprang a burst of fire. Burr leaped, not at her, but to one side again, as again her hand moved. This time, with the flash, came a sensation of burning close enough to touch him.

Then her face convulsed into an ugly mask, she spat in his direction. Her cloak whirled up as if the material had a life of its own or was controlled by her will alone. It wrapped tightly about her, transforming her into a dark pillar, hiding more her head in shapeless folds.

That column of darkness began to sink into the ground, swiftly disappearing. At Burr's side a patch of grass was charred and small red embers glowed there. But she was gone.

An acrid odor arose on the night air. However, save for the shadows of the trees, he seemed to be alone.

"Gurret?"

Spear ready he wheeled about. There was another shadow advancing toward him.

"Gurret," there was recognition in that. But he was not deceived. She thought to play the game a second time, did she?

Once more Burr saw her face clearly. Even in this twilight her features had a kind of radiance which made them plain. He readied himself to again avoid attack.

"It is no use," he said, "you are not Kaitilih."

"No," she agreed, "but I am she who dreams."

Burr eyed her warily. There was indeed a subtle difference (one he could not put name to even in his mind) between this girl and the one who had vanished as if earth had opened under her feet.

"If you are . . . the dreamer, give me proof."

"What proof can I offer?"

“Tell me . . . where did you go . . . and why?"

She did not try to come near to him. "Where did I go? Back to the beginning of the dream. Why? I know not that, save that the one who seeks to change our venture would have me believe that you were dead."

"She nearly achieved that purpose. If a man can be brought down by a dream weapon." He used the point of the spear to stir the charred grass.

The warning which had been so alert in him when he had fronted that other one was lulled. “How did you return?"

"By my will." Uahach seemed confident of that. "What was not real fled when willed it."

Burr shook his head. "Shadows and dreams . . . how can a man fight them? At least your double had a weapon which could do this." Once more he plodded the scorched earth and ashes of grass. Then told her of that other who had taken her form.

“The other dreamer," Uahach returned. "You did not follow the pattern, now . . ." She drew a deep breath. "That having broken the other can substitute her own."

"So we will not know what to expect?" caught the significance of her uneasiness.

"Perhaps so. There is one last thing we may try . . . to go on to nearer the end of the dream, try to hasten its conclusion. Before she gathers her forces and builds up a greater command of the dream design we might break free from there.”

"Can you do this?"

"I do not know. At least she could not hold me with her illusion when she returned me to the mounds. Perhaps she cannot hold the two of us if we will the end. It is not easy to retain any pattern, though I do not know if it has ever occurred that the client strove to alter it for himself. I am your dreamer, thus tied to you . . . if we two work together may be too strong . . .”

"You think we can . . . go ahead?" Burr demanded.

"We can try." But he thought there was a shade of hesitancy in that reply.

"And what is your choice?"

"The Tower of Kiln-nam-U."

She held out her hand, even as the other had done. And the likeness of their gestures was so alike, that, for a breath or two, he was almost hesitant to approach and take it . . . lest he indeed had been deceived for a second time. But here there was none of that pressure, the choice clearly remained his.

He took the two strides to her side and felt her grasp close about his fingers. The touch of her flesh was a little chill, and he sensed through that contact, slight as it was, the whole tension of her body, the concentration building in her.

"Think," she said with sharpness, "of a tower by the sea, the same sea we looked upon . . . think of it!"

He did not know the tricks and shifts of an Esper mind, but if it would help he could at least think of a tower. And he summoned as best he could a mental picture of one . . . archaic by the standards of his own world, but at least matching in part the ruins he had seen from the mounds. Burr closed his eyes better to build that mental picture and then was no longer aware of her touch, rather of something which burned high with an almost consuming force, as if great energy struck full on the flesh-and-bone link between them.

VIII

So this was the Tower and Uahach’s efforts had brought them to the end of the dream. Burr stared at the edifice before him. For a long moment the mental concept he had built in his mind lay like a misty illusion over the reality. Then that was gone and he faced the place native to the dream world.

It was set so that rising pinnacles of a cliff sheltered two of its walls on the sea side, those forming a right-angled corner into which ancient masonry had been carefully fitted in a way so that not even time itself could level it. For there was about this erection such a heavy feeling of age as to lie almost a visible shadow.

For a space which Burr counted as possibly two ordinary stories in height there was no break in the stone, the blocks showed no openings. Above that space existed a triangle of wedge-shaped windows set in a diamond design, giving upon utter blackness, for no bit of the sunlight penetrated those deep holes.

That was another startling shift. They had left night behind them on whatever journey their united will had energized. It was, he thought, now near midday.

The stone from which the Tower was built was a dull red in color unlike the rock of the cliffs which half sheltered it, which were a yellow brown. While caught in the crudely smoothed surface of the blocks were sparks of glittering crystals which reflected the sun, so that the edifice appeared necklaced with gems.

"Kiln-nam-u," Uahach dropped her hold upon his hand "So much have we won."

"And what was Osdeve set to do here?" Burr wanted to know.

"He was to anoint that block." His companion pointed to one of the stones, reaching near to Burr's shoulder in height, seemingly a well set part of the foundation of the Tower. "With water from the Cup of Blood. Then would issue forth the Thing which has always dwelt within and with it he bargained . . . for the Rod of Ar . . . that he might rule."

"Since we don't have this cup," commented Burr, "can't we just break the dream now?"

When she did not answer he glanced from the Tower to her.

Her face was set, her eyes not seeking his, nor even the tower itself, but rather as if she looked beyond or through all which lay before them.

“I . . . can . . . not . . .” Her words, separated by forced breaths (she might have been at the end of a long, hard flight), came in harsh whispers.

"If we have reached near the end of the dream . . . and cannot break it? . . .”

"Then we shall be forced into the other's chosen pattern, here and now." she gave him the bitter truth.

Burr accepted her reply as being correct. All right, so they could not break the dream (the dream Osdeve had set up) but must follow another . . .

"You know all Uahach knows. You must have if they briefed you." He continued. "Is this ever done?"

Now her head did turn a fraction so her wide eyes met his.

“To my knowledge, which is Uahach’s in truth, such a transference is unknown. She is a ten-point dreamer . . . the Hive knows no higher class on its test scale . . .”

"Yet there must be one, or we would not be caught. Have you any way of locating the source?"

The faint shadow of shock which had been in her eyes faded. She wore an intent expression, but not that of one wrapt in concentration.

"I could try. They . . . she . . . must reach us here sooner or later. The dream must come to a definite end or the medic at the Hive will know there is trouble. They . . . the Foostmam, if she is a part of what we seek, would never dare not to allow him to intervene. We certainly lie in proper dream sleep now . . . back there. Therefore, since our dream is timed, whoever would spin the new pattern must move fast. We have cut out the midportion of Osdeve’s adventure, brought it close to the end. I can do no more than wait for the next move, and that will be theirs."

Burr did not like it Patience was a tool he had had to cultivate in his own operations. But those had dealt with the real world and he had then had a measure of control over the future. He had waited out attacks before, but always the opponent had then been working within a framework he himself could understand. This nebulous kind of battle irked him.

"Is there any way we can arrange a defense in advance?” he pressed her.

She did not reply, instead her hand came up to signal warning. A second later he staggered under a blow which was not really physical, although it felt as if some giant fist slammed between his shoulder blades giving him a massive thrust forward toward the Tower. At the same time Uahach's hands went to her head and she cried out in pain.

On . . . that force wanted to push Burr on, to slam him bodily against the block of stone. But he had his wits about him now and he dug in with the spear again to anchor him. His body swayed back and forth under the unseen blows, but he held fast, his mouth set in a grim line.

His companion fell to her knees, her hands still over her ears, tears from her eyes. She moaned, that sound oddly echoed by the rocks about them. It was apparent that, even as he, she fought against some compulsion which was nearly too great to withstand.

The Tower blurred before Burr's eyes. Or was it that the block Uahach had earlier indicated moved? On, whatever strove to control him now wanted to hurl him on, into a dark slit opening there. If it was a door, its outline was a very uneven one, following the natural cracks between the stones.

Burr stood fast. He was not going to obey. Uahach said they had reached near the end of the proper dream: therefore, he would not accept any new pattern. He summoned all the stubbornness of will which he had ever shown, used that as an armor against this beating.

The girl was slowly rising to her feet. Her face, wet with tears, still showing pain lines, had also set (though he did not realize the likeness) into a determination matching his own.

That irregularly framed hole at the base of the Tower was completely open. Uahach said that in the proper dream the Thing, as she called it, had come forth to bargain with Osdeve. Well, Burr did not have the mysterious Cup of Blood it wanted. And whatever rode him now wanted him to go in, not wait here.

As in the wedge windows above, the sun did not enter that opening, even though it made the Tower plain to the eye to the every edge of the jaggered doorway. The darkness lying beyond the threshold of that had a tangible quality which held out all natural light.

Was the Thing coming now? Ana now would it react to the fact Burr did not have what Osdeve had used to summon it? He wavered forward one bitterly contested step as the compulsion dealt an even more severe blow.

It wanted him in. Therefore that was where he was not going!

For the first time during their struggle Uahach spoke. “That other dreamer must fight hard to hold us both." She had regained much of her air of command as well as mastery over herself. "When I raise my hand, try to move back . . . try with all your might!"

She was again watching the Tower with a fixed stare, her body stiff. Then her hand arose. Burr threw himself back, putting into that ‘action every bit of stubborn strength he possessed.

A cord might have snapped. Burr lost his feet, struck the ground with a force which half stunned him, then rolled. The girl stood straight, a defiant pillar between him and the hole he had no doubt was a trap. But he felt a release which left him weak.

Uahach’s figure wavered. Once more she sank to her knees, as if pressed by a punishing weight. Before he thought Burr dropped the spear. And, getting to his feet, leaped to cover the distance between them. His grip closed tight and steady on her shoulders, holding her so as she went limp.

IX

What filled the atmosphere about them was a malignant and petulant anger. Burr could not have told why he was so sure of that disembodied emotion, he only knew that he was.  And from that sullen rage he gained a fraction of confidence. The other had not expected such a forceful defense from the two of them, for the moment it was defeated. But only for the moment . . . of that Burr was also sure. There was a sudden end to the manifestation of the unknown's will, even the anger winked out.

Uahach drew a deep breath, nearly a sob.

"She is gone." her voice was ragged, drained.

"Will she try that again?" Burr asked.

"Who knows? At least she still has power enough to keep us here.”

"You are sure?"

"Do you think I have not already tested?" the girl flashed at him. "Yes, we are fixed here, in Osdeve's dream. What new pattern may have been devised I cannot guess."

Burr looked to that irregular gap in the Tower wan. He had half expected it to close now that the pressure on him to enter had been withdrawn. However, it remained not only open but with an ominous kind of threat lying within its thick blackness. He wanted to go and thrust the spearpoint deeply into that. But another part of him shrank from advancing any closer to the enigmatic fortress.

"Is there any way," he continued to explore possible  avenues of escape or means of defense, "for you to continue improvising from the end of Osdeve's own dream?"

She shook her head. "I am not a true dreamer. Since I am Esper I could pick up just Uahach's experiences, relive those. But these dreamers of Ty-Kry are born with different talents, and those talents are fostered by training from the moment their abilities are recognized. Many of them actually have very little real life apart from their dreams. I know only what my briefing, which was thorough just as to Uahach’s past, could give me."

"There is no way then." But Burr refused defeat. He was not to wait here tamely for what the unknown could bring into being as a threat against them.

"I do not know . . .”

At first her words hardly pierced through the milling thought in his own mind. But when their meaning did reach him. Burr turned on her swiftly, his controlled anger at the whole situation making his demand explosive in force.

"You may not know, but you are speculating . . . about what?”

"There is this, and it will be highly dangerous. She will make a move soon, you must have felt her rage when she could not force us to her desire. If we let whatever menace she sends against us develop fully, then there is just a chance I can connect with the thread of her dream weaving. But the dream then must be hers . . . not mine, nor a hybrid one which is half and half."

"So you may be able to find the connecting thread . . . what then?"

"Just this, if I can fasten to it firmly, we can force our way out. These dreamers are fully programmed in one important factor . . . they must break the dream on the client's order. I could not do that for you because this unlooked-for situation had arisen. The dream was secondhand and it was already overlaid, before I tried, by a blanketing force from another and very powerful dreamer."

What she said made sense to Burr, after a fashion. But he did not like it at all.

"How far must the new dream go before you have a chance to do this?"

She did not meet his gaze. "I am afraid far enough to make the situation highly dangerous. You will have to face whatever peril she introduces, and hold it, until I have located the dream thread and can anchor us to it."

There was a kind of desperate logic in that and Burr could understand what she suggested, even though it was far outside his experience. That the result of such action would be perilous he had no doubts at all. But neither had he any other choice that he could see.

"We wait then . . . until she moves." That was not a question but a decision on his part. Then he did add a question, "Can you guess who 'she' is? The Foostmam?"

"No. She trains dreamers but she is not known to be a dreamer herself. You understand, many dreamers are almost completely locked away from reality; they must be tended as one tends an infant. Those who so protect and care for them are not dreamers for that very reason. There are two dreamers in the Hive who had their clients die. One was herself maimed in the dream world so that she lives, but just that . . . her dreaming mind is either dead or shocked it cannot be reached.

“The other dreamer is unusual in that her potential was never realized until she reached adolescence. This has been known to happen, but very rarely. Any family which has produced a dreamer in the past knows the signs to watch for in early childhood and are eager to find one of their clan house with the ability. It means a large sum of credits for them. So a late developer has been found now and again, but it is an uncommon happening."

"You think this is the one?”

Uahach shrugged. "How can I tell? Two men died in dreams she spun for them and she was not shocked herself. Those are the only facts I can give you."

"Have you seen her? Talked to her?" Burr pressed.

"No. The Hive keeps all their dreamers of higher rank separated. A dreamer not in service is expected to build up her dreaming ability by the garnering of information, using the stored tapes to gather material for her dreams. It is a very lonely life for those who wake."

"Each of those dead men provided reason to wish them dead," Burr commented. "Either their wealth or their offices made them vulnerable. So if someone could tamper with a dreamer, perhaps even provide the proper background tapes . . .”

The girl was already nodding. "Yes, it could be done. Each one of us hides in his or her inner mind some personal and private fear. If the nature of that fear was known and it could be materialized to the highest wave . . .”

“They could well die, or wake raving! But that information would have to be supplied by someone close enough."

"What of your fears?" she asked.

“They provided me with a tight background for identity." Burr mused. "But hardly recorded anything such as that."

He paced up and down beginning to wonder. Could a dreamer herself shift out of a man's mind his greater fear and then materialize it?

As he turned to face the girl once more he saw she had changed position, her eyes fixed on the dark hole which remained open in the Tower. The tense rigidity was back in her figure. He needed no more warning than that.

There was something coming, their enemy once more moved. But so far all Burr could see was that deep darkness within. Breathing a little quickly he came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Uahach. He wanted to ask if she could give any hint as to what to expect, but feared to break her concentration. She had already made it plain to him that he must stand up to anything which awaited them long enough for her to reach the dream line lying behind it.

There was a curdling crawl of the black shadow. Some of it licked forward like a black questing tongue, striking out into the light and air in a pointed ribbon of darkness.

Instinctively Burr retreated, drawing his companion with him.

There was something about that evidence of strange life which churned his stomach, made his flesh roughen as if he stood in the midst of an icy blast.

The point end arose from the ground, weaved from side to side, as might the head of some reptile. Now there were bulges there. These popped with an audible sound to display red coals of eyes.

Burr could not identify the thing and, though the sight made him sick in an odd way he could not define, he fought to subdue his fear. Perhaps, since the unknown dreamer did not have any briefing as to his private fears she was producing now a fragment of her own most morbid imagining.

The black ribbon flowed forward slowly. Its head had stopped weaving, those coal eyes were centered on Burr. If the head was narrow, the bloated body coming into view through the hole door was slug fat, with a quivering hump forming most of it.

“No!”

The girl beside him cried out, raised her hands as if to push the crawling monster back into hiding. Her face was a mask of disgust and terror, the fear taking over.

X

Burr guessed what had happened. The enemy had not struck at him, but rather at Uahaeh, perhaps because already the opposition was aware that in such a battle as they faced the girl was the stronger opponent.

A fetid odor wafted from the crawler, thick and loathsome enough to make Burr gag. He had put out his left hand to grip the girl's shoulder, and could feel the shudders running through her. Though this crawling monstrosity was unknown to him, it was not to her.

"Hold on!" He gave her a shake. "It is a dream . . . Remember . . . a dream!"

She could not still her shivering, but he saw her head move. It was plain that she was in no condition at this moment to do what must be done . . . trace that thread of communication with the other dreamer.

Burr raised his hand from the roundness of her shoulder. grabbed for the throat buckle of the bulky cloak she wore. His fingers freed the latch and he gathered the long folds of material swiftly into his grip.

"Stand back!"

Setting the spear between his knees he took the cloak into both hands. The material was very closely woven, yet silky to the touch. He shook out the length and then, with what skill he could summon, he sent the outer edge snapping up in the air, spinning the goods out and down.

The folds settled over the crawler, masking the creature from view and, before the thing could free itself, Burr sprang forward to stab down again and again at that hulk heaving under the cloth. In his head, not his ears, shrilled a thin screaming which shook him, but not enough to make him retreat. There were growing splotches on the cloak, evil-smelling liquid oozing through the slits the spearpoint made.

Yet it would seem that the thing could not be killed for there was no end to the movement under the torn and befouled cloak. Burr stabbed . . . stabbed. Could not the Thing be killed?

Once more he sensed the rise of strange fierce anger in the Very air about him. But at last the monster no longer moved. Burr drew back warily from the bundle of stinking cloth, his spear ready for a second assault.

Uahach breathed in deep gasps, but when her eyes met his this time there was recognition in them.

"Were you able to get anything?" He thought that a very vain hope. She had been too shaken by the emergence of the crawler.

But she nodded. "Something not enough. I must try again. That . . . I did not expect that." Still shivering she pointed to what lay hidden from their eyes.

"That was your fear."

She shook her head. "Not mine . . . hers . . . Uahach's! It seems they implanted more than her memories in me."

For a moment there was silence between them. That attack had been cunningly organized . . . not to get directly at Burr, but rather remove the support of his true dreamer. If he had been killed it would have served a double purpose. But now he was convinced that the girl with him had as much to fear as he did. And when she spoke, Burr knew that she realized that in turn.

“To shake me," she spoke in a voice hardly above a whisper. "With me held, then you can be easily taken, or so she thinks!"

“What will she send next?" He knew the folly of asking that even as he voiced the question. Esper talented this pseudodreamer might be, but to be able to outsee the enemy dreamer was too much to expect of anyone.

There was a noise, not issuing from the dark bowels of the Tower but rather from the rock cliffs. Burr slued around, and his breath caught in his throat.

Perhaps the enemy did not have the proper knowledge of his personal fears, but what had been conjured up now, what was scrabbling over the waste of rocks would awaken sick fear in any one in whose veins even a trace of Terran blood now flowed.

Each planet has its own perils. But there was one overriding one which had led in the past to two desperate measures, the actual deliberate burn-off by force of whole worlds which had been infected, lest a horrible death spawned on the surface somehow carried on to blight more of the galaxy.

This . . . this Thing which lurched with purpose toward Them . . . Burr had seen its like in the tri-dees of warning each agent must memorize in first training. The mewling creature must once have been human, or humanoid enough to interbreed with Terrans. For their species alone in the galaxy was susceptible to what it harbored within it. And it was an added curse of that rotting disease that those victims who harbored it were driven in turn to infect their fellows. Touch, a whiff of breath from their half-dissolved throats . . . a myriad different things could transmit the virus . . . a virus which had a deadly life of its own, feeding not only on the victim's body, but on his liquifying mind, so that it learned from its carrier where and when it could be most likely to pick a fresh victim.

The creature, dead as a man knows death, yet stumbling on, powered by the will of the thing which had killed it so horribly, lurched toward them. All Burr's instincts lay toward flight, even though he knew it would do no good. Once the thing was set on their trail it would tirelessly follow. Since it was already dead, no weapon save a burner beam could destroy it. And it was a menace to both of them. So it would seem that the dreamer was now determined to slay them together in a single supreme effort.

Burr kept telling himself that this was a dream, that only his own acceptance of such action as being reality could give the thing the power of killing. But his indoctrination against the disease went so deep that the logic of that argument was far too feeble.

The sea . . . the sea was behind it and here the cliff was high. If there was only some way of hurling it back over that rise they could gain time, for it would take long for that broken, eaten body to climb such a barrier and be after them.

Burr, gritting his teeth, took a couple of strides forward and snatched up the cloak which hid the battered monster, paying no attention to the noisome mass beneath.

"You have another weighted cord?" he said over his shoulder.

She did not answer and when he looked around he could see his companion was caught again in a trance state. Apparently this time unaffected by the loathsome thing tottering inexorably toward them, she was striving to trace the nightmare creature back to its creator.

Dragging the torn, stained cloak, Burr leaped to her side. She did indeed have one of the weighted cords in a hook on her belt. He jerked it free, nearly dragging her from her balance by that sudden grab. Her attention did not shift to him, but he did have the cord in his hands.

Burr swung around to face the shambling horror. The weighted cord was a weapon new to him, but it was all he had. To let the thing come near enough to spear would avail him nothing for that body, until its legs rotted away under it, would pursue, it would even crawl as long as its bone-arms lasted.

He whirled the cord about his head as he had seen the girl do. This was such a slim chance, but the only one. He loosed the thong to see it pass out through the air. It caught about the thing a little lower than hip-high, just at a moment when the thing teetered on a rock from which it could leap out and land close to them.

However, instead it fell under the impetus of the weighted cord. Instantly Burr moved, flinging the cloak over the floundering thing much as he had done over the slug-creature. It fought the folds of cloth. A limb which was half bone protruded through from one stained slit. But Burr was ready.

Twisting the spear he jabbed fiercely with its butt at the fighting thing. Twice his weapon thudded home, rolling it back toward the edge of the cliff. With a mighty effort, for it had somehow gotten to its knees again, he sent the spear in a third blow, into which he put all of the strength he could muster, straight into the middle of the muffled shape.

This time he hurled it well back. For a second or so he was afraid not far enough. Then, as it fought to rise, to balance, it teetered farther back and was gone down into the sea beneath.

XI

"It is gone for a moment." He could have shouted that in his relief.

But when he looked to Uahach again he saw she had not turned her head a fraction: she could not have witnessed his small victory. Her lips moved though . . .

“Come.”

She had not spoken that word aloud, he had only read it with his glance. Her left hand made a vague motion away from her body as if seeking something to grasp. Burr plunged forward and gripped her fingers within his. Had she done it . . . found the link with the enemy? Could he dare to believe? . . .

The world of the Tower was blotted out by a burst of utter darkness, if one could imagine dark snapping instantly into being. Burr could not even feel if he was still hand-linked to the girl, that he had any anchor at all. There came a sensation of rushing through that darkness . . .

Was this how a dream ended? His lost feeling awoke new fear. Suppose they were now caught within this place of notbeing . . . held forever here. Twice there were flashes of sight, a misty uprise of tower and rocks. Burr had the sensation of being drawn in two directions. And there came a pain in that which was not of body, but struck rather at some innermost core.

The dark held steady now. And the sensation of passage through this space was more intense. Then came a break in the blackness. What lay there, clothed in mist, was not rock or tower, rather a body stretched out on some support which did not come into visibility at all. And he was drawn to the side of that body.

This was a dreamer, her head half masked in the helmet which reinforced and held the dream intact.

And now Burr was aware of a strong emotion. Not the anger which had struck at him before . . . no. this was the need for action, imperative and demanding. It came not from the dreamer, but from somewhere about him.

He watched a hand materialize out of nothing, its fingers crooked as if it would claw at the helmet of the sleeper. And at the same moment there was a wordless demand . . .

"Now! Give me . . . now!”

In him arose, without his conscious volition an answer to that cry. He must give form and substance to that clutching hand with every particle of energy he could summon. There was a swift outrush of such strength as he did not even know that he could produce until he felt it drain from him.

The hand grew denser, more real. Still he was being drained, as it began to descend with infinite slowness, moving in small jerks as if fighting its way against some defensive covering, down toward the body of the dreamer.

He could not continue to give, yet he must! For unless that hand completed its mission he would be lost indeed. Burr did not know he could be so sure of that, he only knew that he was certain of it as if it had been part of his briefing.

Slowly the hand moved . . . so slowly. He was weakened by the drain it caused that he felt now only a tatter of man which any wind might bear away.

The crooked fingers straightened a little. They no longer resembled claws. The forefinger turned, pointed to the breast of the sleeper.

Burr held on. This was such a battle as nothing in his past had prepared him to wage. It all depended upon that finger . . . the touch  . . . but that must come soon, very soon!

Still in jerks as if the energy which powered it flowed and ebbed the hand continued to descend. Then, the forefinger touched the misty figure of the dreamer, which had not taken on any substance at during the long space of time, or so it had seemed to Burr, since he had come to its side.

The dreamer writhed. The finger could have been a point of steel well aimed. Then the mouth showing beneath the rim of the helmet grimaced, lips moving as if spewing forth some curse. Yet Burr could neither hear nor read words.

Again dark snapped down and he was . . . lost . . .

Something stung with a sharp stab of pain. And that pain had not been in his innermost self . . . no, he had felt that in his body. The virus ridden horror? His imagination painted a picture of that climbing doggedly up the cliff, coming to embrace him---to . . .

Gasping, he opened his eyes. A man wearing the badge of a medic leaned over him, watching him with a steady, measuring gaze. Burr blinked and blinked again. He felt dazed, unable to put name to this at first.

"You'll do . . . “

Even those words spoken in Basic sounded queer and far away.

His whole body was stiff as he raised his hand jerkily. The helmet was gone. He was back! Recognition came now with a warm rush. He levered himself up on the divan.

"Uahach?" Burr got out the name in a shaken voice.

"She'll do," the Medic reassured him. "Close thing there though . . .”

'The other one!" Burr remembered. “The other dreamer . . .”

He saw the Medic's eyes narrow. The man was attached to the Council HQ here, he would have been briefed before this experiment.

"She . . .” a voice as weak as his own brought Burr's head around.

Dreamer's helmet had been shed. A thin girl with cropped hair of dull brown, her wan features sharp as those of a famine victim, sat on the side of the other divan. Her slender arms were folded over her middle and she was so different from the fighting Kaitilih he had known in that other place that it was almost impossible to equate this wan and drab other being with his companion.

“Come . . ." Uahach attempted to rise to her feet, wavered and fell back. The Medic turned quickly.

"Lie still!" he ordered.

"No!" her answer came as emphatically. "We must . . . go . . . to . . . her . . . now!”

Burr wavered to his feet. He was as weak as if he had come out of the nightmare of the tower world sorely wounded.

"She's right." he said. "It has to be finished."

He was glad when another man, wearing a guard's side arm stepped into his line of vision, put out a hand to steady him. While the Medic, though looking as if he highly disapproved of the whole affair, was aiding Uahach up.

"Where is she?” It was Burr who asked that.

"Lost . . . there . . .” Uahach's faint answer did not quite make sense.

As the Medic supported her from the room, the Foostmam stood just outside the door, facing them with an expressionless face. She made no move to step aside, barring their way.

"By order of your own lords," the Medic snapped, "give us free passage."

"The Hive cannot be forced!" the woman retorted sharply.

"In this case, yes." The Medic gave a jerk of his head which brought another guard into sight. "Step aside, or be put aside."

A spasm of pure hate contracted her features. "You take too much on you, off-worlder. The Hive cannot be so used."

"As you have used it for murder?" Burr asked.

She swung around to face him, her face once more expressionless.

"That is not the truth. I have already been proven, by your own methods of questioning, blameless."

"But you harbor a dreamer Who is not . . .” the Medic retorted. "Now we go to face her. And later there shall be inquiries as to her briefing, Foostmam. Perhaps you shall discover those who may give the Hive a darker repute than it now has.”

"The Hive is innocent. Dreamers cannot kill . . .” Her armor of defense remained undented.

"I can testify," Burr said, "that they can try . . .”

His weakness was ebbing, he was able to stand now without the support of the guard.

Uahach had said nothing during their exchange. Her face was set, her body once more rigid as it had been when she had thrown all her power into the search for their unknown enemy. The Medic glanced at her and then nodded.

"Step aside!"

This time the Foostmam shrugged and obeyed. They proceeded down the hall, around into a second corridor. The ruler of the Hive must have followed them for now her voice was raised in a new protest.

"There are no dreaming rooms here. . . . You must not enter the private chambers!"

The Medic did not even answer her. His arm around Uahach kept her on her feet. Burr guessed that the draining of the Esper power to effect their return had been far more serious than his own ordeal. Yet she moved forward now as if driven by the need to find the source of the energy which had attempted to lock them into the dream world.

She swayed to a stop before a door at the far end of the corridor, putting out her hand to rest fingertips on the closed portal.

"Inside . . .” Her voice had gained no strength.

XII

At a gesture from the Medic the guard who had loomed over the Foostmam set his palm on the seal of the door. For a moment or so it would seem that had been locked against any outside interference. Then it began to roll aside, slowly and grudgingly.

From inside came a noise, a kind of mewling such as a sick animal might make. The Medic, staring over Uahach's head, showed such shock that Burr moved up beside him. Instantly the man pushed Uahach back, flung out an arm to bar Burr's advance.

"Close that, damn you!" he ordered. And the guard, wearing the same expression of shock and horror, slammed the barrier to. But not before Burr had had a single glimpse of what half lay across the divan within, was making an effort to rise, its blind, eroded face turned questioningly toward those it wanted as prey.

It was not as far gone as the horror which had hunted them on the cliff. But there was no mistaking the signs of the same dread disease. Burr made a quick move to support Uahach as the Medic rounded on the guards with a series of orders.

And it was Burr who led the girl back to the dreaming chamber. As he settled her on the divan and sat beside her, his arm about her shoulders, she spoke slowly.

"It . . . recoiled. What she dreamed against us a part of her."

"How could that happen?” Burr asked. He tried not to remember what he had in that room, what must now be destroyed without mercy and as swiftly as possible.

"I don't know," Uahach returned. "But I think that she was not a true dreamer, not one such as they have always known on Ty-Kry. And she has been using her powers deliberately to kill. They said that she was a late developer . . . perhaps she was something else, a mutant of the dreamer stock. But I believe she was striving to send that crawling death against us even as we broke into wakefulness. Then, somehow, the force returned upon its sender. They called her Dynamis. We must find out now from whence she came, and who stands, or stood behind her."

"Not our job," Burr told her. "Let the regular hounds take over that coursing now."

Uahach sighed. "We must report . . .”

“That much I agree upon. But let the Organization take over then. We are entitled, I am sure, to hazard leave."

"And, by the way," he added a moment later. "What is your real name? I refuse to settle for either Kaitilih, as good a fighter as she was, or Uahach, a dreamer . . . “

She shivered. "I am not a dreamer! It was as if with that statement she thrust aside all which had menaced them, up to and including that last burst of horror found in the Hive chamber.

Burr smiled. “That you are not! They say that Avalon is an excellent leave planet. But I'd like a name to enter on the request token."

"I am Ludia Tanguly," she answered. And her voice was firm. "Yes, indeed I am Ludia Tanguly!" It was as if she must affirm that identity and make sure that nothing remained of Uahach.

Burr nodded. "Very well, Ludia Tanguly, it is now our duty to get to HQ, to give recorded statements and then . . ."

She straightened up within the half circle of his arm as if new strength flowed back into her. "And then . . . shall I think about your suggestion," she ended firmly.

 

THE END

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