Dreamer Page 17

  The column shifted against Padric’s fur. He jumped away with a hiss and spun to face it. The white stone bulged with odd shapes. Distorted human forms moved within the rock, stretching and twisting in impossible directions. Eyes bulged and contracted, skin and muscle contorted. An arm broke free with a wet sound and reached for him. Padric scrambled backward. Cold slime washed over his hind feet, oozed between his toes. Padric tried to leap free, but the blackness held him fast. Still chuckling, it crawled up his haunches. A tendril snapped upward and wrapped around his shoulders like an icy snake.

  Padric shut his eyes. He was not in danger. He was not going to die. He was Padric Sufur, and he was a master in the Dream. The ooze climbed, engulfing his front legs. Padric forced himself to shut out the horrible keening, the cold slime crawling up his body. It reached his chest and shoulders. Padric inhaled deeply, ignoring the rotten smell and the fact that he couldn’t feel his feet. He was calm. He was in control.

  The icy ooze rushed over his head. Padric automatically tried to inhale and choked. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t—

  Padric Sufur’s eyes snapped open and he sat up with a gasp. He flailed wildly about his bed for a moment before realizing that the slime was gone, the wailing silent. He had successfully left the Dream.

  Padric wrapped long, thin arms around his chest, acclimating himself to his real shape. It was bony and inefficient. KellReech had a lower center of gravity and more dextrous fingers. Chipk had many legs and eyes and soft brown fur. Padric’s body was mostly hairless and his hands were awkward. His face was lean, unlined, and hawk-like, with a long nose and thin lips. His body was equally lean, with long limbs and hands. Out of the Dream, Padric had allowed a few wrinkles to creep across his face to remind him that, despite appearances, eighty-eight wasn’t young even for a human.

  The bedroom had already raised the temperature to the toasty warmth he preferred upon awakening from the Dream, but a chill suffused his bones. Padric’s room was large and spare, furnished with only a bed, endtable, and wardrobe. Like each room in the rest of his home, this one was a clear dome with, in Padric’s considered opinion, the most beautiful view in the universe.

  The estate occupied most of an asteroid, and it consisted of a series of above-ground half-bubbles blown from the rock and sand of the asteroid itself and reinforced with clear polymers. Thick carpets went right up to the edge of the dome, where the floor became the pocked surface of the asteroid. If Padric dimmed the lights, making the dome effectively invisible, it looked as if the room were standing in the middle of a vast desert beneath a soft black sky and steady, shining stars. And the gas giant, of course.

  The ringed gas giant, which Padric had named Gem, dominated the heavens, and her rainbow surface was often chased by raging storms large enough to engulf entire planets. Padric’s asteroid currently skated the giant’s icy ring, making it look as if a glittering, blue-white road stretched past the horizon. An entire team of what Padric called his “gardeners” did nothing but scan the asteroid’s projected orbit for ring debris and remove anything that might punch a hole in, or even scratch, the domes. It was terribly expensive, especially when the asteroid’s orbit carried it through the ring itself, but the view was well worth it.

  Padric sat tailor-fashion on his bed and drummed his fingers thoughtfully on one thigh. His heart had slowed, but a certain tension remained in his gut. The Dream was becoming more and more dangerous. He would have to arrange a meeting with Dr. Say, and quickly.

  The bedroom door opened and a large spider-like being scuttled in. A silver tray was balanced expertly on its back, and the delicious smells of sweet rolls and coffee filled the dome. Padric shivered with Dream cold again and all but snatched the coffee mug off the tray. He sipped the bitter warmth gratefully. The spider, meanwhile, set the tray on the nightstand, then stepped back and waved its forward legs and antennae. Padric, adept at the sign language, didn’t need to activate the translator.

  “Will you require anything more, sir?” Chipk, the spider, was asking. He was a Kepaar whose had lost status on his homeworld. Padric had hired him, though Chipk had the unnerving habit of referring to it as “buying my soul.”

  “The newest reports about the Dream, please,” Padric replied in his own language. He couldn’t speak Kepaarin—not without multi-jointed legs—but Chipk knew Padric’s language perfectly well. It was an equitable arrangement.

  “The news has already been downloaded into the room, sir,” Chipk said, and withdrew.

  Padric sipped from the mug again. Although coffee was originally a human discovery, it had taken the ministrations of more evolved races to produce the best results, and Padric’s staff always ordered beans that had never touched human hands or soil.

  “Meth-pa,” he said, “news. Text format.”

  A holographic veiwscreen obediently appeared in front of him and words scrolled down it. There were several stories about Silent who had been caught in strange accidents or fought terrible monsters. Per Grill, a Silent from Bell Star Station, had nearly been swallowed by a giant worm. A pair of Silent involved in a delicate stock market transaction had been hit by a tornado. They described the whirlwind as “screaming at us.”

  Nileeja Vo was dead.

  Padric gasped and hurriedly re-read the article. Nileeja Vo was—had been—a field recruiter for Dreamers, Inc. Her husbands had found her dead on her couch, a look of terror on her face. According to the newspaper, she had finished a mail transfer within the Dream, and the other Silent, the one receiving the information, had left the Dream just fine. Moments later, something had killed her Dream form, and her body had quickly followed.

  Padric put a bony hand over his mouth as he read. A small bit of sorrow clotted his throat. He had met Nileeja Vo at the same time he had met KellReech. Padric remembered squatting in the filthy camp barrack when a strange being entered, flanked by two guards. The being was short and scaly, with long graceful fingers. It moved through the room, touching each inmate and moving on without speaking. Padric watched in wary fascination until the creature came to him. When its fingers brushed his bare shoulder, a jolt flashed down his spine.

  “This one,” the being said.

  The guards took Padric by the upper arms and full-blown terror burst upon him. He struggled and fought until one of the guards cracked him across the head with a baton. The world went dark.

  When he awoke with an ache in his head and nausea in his stomach, the short creature was standing next to him. It occurred to Padric that he was lying on a bed, a soft one. The creature pressed something against his arm. There was a soft thump, and the headache and nausea vanished.

  “Who are you?” Padric asked.

  The creature smiled with its wide mouth. “My name is KellReech,” it said.

  The door opened, and another being walked in. This one was over two meters tall and willowy with enormous black eyes, a shock of wild white hair, and rough brown skin. It carried a food tray. An appetizing smell filled the room and Padric’s mouth watered. He sat up and saw that he was dressed in clean pajamas. His body also felt clean, though he hadn’t bathed in months. The willowy creature set the tray in Padric’s lap. He instantly shoveled food into his mouth, not even stopping to examine or taste it.

  “This is my colleague Nileeja Vo,” KellReech said. “And we represent Dreamers, Inc.”

  While Padric bolted his food, KellReech explained further. New Prague, Padric’s planet, had been invaded and taken over by the One World Regime without any formal declaration of war. New Prague was now an official protectorate of the Regime, and random segments of its population were alternately enslaved or put into the work camps. That much Padric knew, though he didn’t stop eating long enough to say so.

  KellReech went on to explain that Dreamers, Inc. was a separate entity, a private corporation that provided Dream communication at competitive prices to anyone who had the means to pay for it. Dreamers, Inc. was always on the lookout for more Silent,
and they had bribed the regeant of the camp for the privilege of combing the inmates for any Silent the Regime might have missed. They had found Padric.

  Padric took a long pull from a large glass of milk, though he listened carefully to every word. There would be a catch somewhere, he was certain of it. In the camps, no one did anything for free.

  Nileeja sat on the foot of Padric’s bed, and he spared enough attention to see what his surroundings were. He was in a small room with metal walls and a carpeted floor. A ship? The room contained only his bed, an endtable, and a single chair. Nileeja smelled faintly like crushed grass.

  “You to be free now, Padric,” Nileeja said in a soft, soothing voice. “This mean you to have choices. You to tell us you to want walk away right now, and we to take you wherever you want to go. No obligation. Or you to join Dreamers, Inc.”

  She went on to explain that Dreamers, Inc. would train Padric to use his Silence at their extensive and highly-advanced facility, though not for free. Upon completion of his training, he could either work for Dreamers, Inc. with living costs paid and salary going to pay off debts, or he could strike out on his own and give a portion of his earnings to Dreamers, Inc. until the debt was paid.

  Padric sucked crumbs off his fingertips and promptly chose to join. What other choice did he have? KellReech and Nileeja Vo nodded their approval and told him to sleep.

  Padric later learned there were no other humans aboard the Quiet Dreamer, though there were a dozen other aliens, all different, all Silent. The Dreamer was on a long-term recruiting mission and wouldn’t return to headquarters for several months. During that time, it became obvious that something had to be done about Padric. He suffered terrible nightmares. He stole from the crew and new recruits. He told lies, and once he even set fire to his mattress. Eventually, KellReech started meeting with him on a daily basis to talk. Padric later learned that KellReech had been reading books on human psychology, though she admitted to Nileeja that some of it was hard to grasp. Still, she did her best.

  “Of course,” KellReech said during one session. “You are angry. You are in pain from what your fellow humans did to you. You hate them for it, and you hate yourself.”

  At first, Padric didn’t want to talk to her at all, and KellReech wisely did not threaten to withdraw Dreamers, Inc.’s offer if he didn’t behave. Eventually, after much coaxing, Padric did talk to her. He told her about the camps and the guards, talked about how he had stolen from other inmates and informed on some of them to get better treatment for himself.

  “You feel guilty about what you did,” KellReech said. “But the urge to survive is a strong instinct among humans. You did what you had to do, and it’s normal to feel guilt and hatred. It’s normal to hate yourself and other humans.”

  When the ship reached the moon that served as the headquarters for Dreamers, Inc., Padric’s training began. Once he finished, Padric elected to go freelance and send a portion of his wages back to Dreamers to pay off the debts and interest incurred by his rescue and training, but he still retained several contacts with the company, including KellReech. He had fallen out of touch with Nileeja Vo, however, and hadn’t laid eyes on her in over thirty years.

  Now she was dead.

  Sorrow washed over Padric. He sat silent for a moment, then ordered the computer to make a sizeable donation in her name to whatever charity Nileeja’s family might deem appropriate. The computer would route the order to Padric’s own team of Silent, who would go into the Dream, contact his bank—literally Padric’s bank—and authorize them to transfer the funds to a bank on Nileeja’s world. The Silent who worked for Padric’s bank would contact the Silent who worked for the bank on Nileeja’s world, and they would accept the transfer. Padric’s bank would deduct the amount of money from his account, and the other bank would add the amount to theirs. Transaction completed.

  Padric, meanwhile, still on his bed, swallowed his sorrow a bit more easily that he thought he should. On the other hand, he hadn’t seen Nileeja Vo in three decades. With a heavy sigh he turned back to the news. Several articles mentioned the blackness. Dreamers, Inc. and the Children of Irfan, among others, had declared the situation a full-blown emergency and had set task forces to studying the problem. Padric reached thoughtfully for a sweet roll. If this was indeed the result of the project, he would need to keep the fact under wraps for a while longer. Maybe he could put some quiet pressure on Dreamers, Inc. to slow their investigation. The Children of Irfan would be harder to deal with, but he’d come up with something.

  Meanwhile, he needed more information.

  “Meth-pa,” he said, “search for ‘Empire of Human Unity’ or ‘Unity,’ capital u, and ‘Silent,’ capital s. Exclude news released by the Empire of Human Unity itself.”

  “No matches,” the computer reported.

  “Meth-pa, search for names ‘Sejal’ and ‘Araceil Rymar.’ Include Unity news releases.”

  “No matches.”

  Padric nodded. These were telling facts. The Unity was keeping its mouth shut about Araceil and Sejal. That either meant the boy was so worthless he wasn’t worth mentioning or that he was so valuable, the Unity didn’t want word of his existence to leak out. Considering what Araceil had said, Padric took the latter point of view. Now Sejal, this valuable resource, was free and at large. Padric would have paid serious money to see the expression on Unity Premier Yuganovi’s face when he learned a ragtag bunch of monks had gotten the better of him.

  Another sip of coffee, and some of the chill left Padric’s bones. Sejal was an incalculably valuable asset to whoever controlled him. Besides, if one project failed, it was best to have another.

  “Meth-pa, begin transcript of Dream session. Label ‘Sejal’ and cross-reference by date and time.”

  “Recording.”

  Padric set down his coffee, took a deep, calming breath, and slipped into a light trance. Word for word, he dictated the conversation he had overheard between Araceil and the messenger to Empress Kan maja Kalii.

  “Meth-pa,” he said when he was done, “how long would it take my slipship to reach the planet Bellerophon?”

  “Approximately six days, two hours.”

  And Sejal would reach Bellerophon in eleven days. That gave him five days to plan. Padric picked up his cup, which had kept the coffee hot for him, took a sip, and quite literally stared into space.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PLANET RUST

  You’ll never find it if you don’t look.

  —Maternal proverb

  Vidya Vajhur stared through the grimy window. A pocked, gray aerogel wall was the only view, but she didn’t really see it.

  She had failed. All the visions, the work, the planning. Failed. Sejal had fallen victim to the same fate as Prasad, Katsu, and her two baby boys. They’d all been sucked up by the merciless Unity city. True, Sejal was still alive, was still out there somewhere on a world called Bellerophon. But he had first been sold, used, chewed up by the slums. The proof lay in his words and in the coins that lay heavy in her pocket.

  He is a prostitute.

  The blunt, hateful words were burned indelibly into her brain. Those words were why she couldn’t go with the monks to Bellerophon. Vidya needed time away from Sejal. Whenver she looked at him after hearing that terrible sentence, Vidya could only see Sejal in bed with…women? Men? Both? She didn’t want to know. Perhaps once she had been apart from Sejal long enough to start missing him, the images would change. But now she couldn’t bear to look at him.

  Vidya forced the images away. The room was stuffy and smelled of dust, but Vidya hadn’t been able to open the window. Conversations from neighboring rooms filtered in through the thin walls. Mounted on the wall was an ancient terminal that, after some coaxing, grudgingly produced a newscast. Vidya skimmed it, looking for news of Sejal and the Children of Irfan. Nothing so far. Vidya allowed herself a small sigh of relief.

  After bidding Sejal good-bye, Vidya had gone home only to be stopped at the guard sta
tion outside the neighborhood. Enyi, the neighborhood guard, had warned Vidya that two Unity guard were waiting for her in the apartment. They were doubtless looking for Sejal.

  Kicking herself for not realizing this would happen, Vidya had gone to the apartment building across the street and set watch from the lobby. Less than two hours later, two Unity guard left her building and hurried away. Vidya’s heart lurched. If they were leaving, Sejal had obviously been located, but there was no way to know if he had escaped or been captured. Trying not to think about the latter possibility, Vidya dashed across to her apartment and went into Sejal’s closet. The knot and loose floorboard were exactly where he had said they would be. She pulled up the board and fished out a small cloth bag. It was heavy with kesh.

  Vidya didn’t stop to count it or think about where it had come from. Instead, she flung clothes, toiletries, and a few other items into a carryall and left. She’d told the startled gate guard that she didn’t know when—or if—she would be back. Then she hurried away, putting failure behind her.

  Now in the stuffy hotel room, Vidya flicked off the terminal. If Sejal and the Children of Irfan had been captured or killed, the news would have been full of the story so everyone would see the futility of defying the Unity. The lack of news meant they had escaped.

  Vidya knew she herself could probably never go back to the neighborhood. The Unity guard would want to question her, see if she knew where Sejal had gone. Vidya, however, had no intention of letting the Unity get its hands on her again.

  Taking a deep breath, Vidya dumped the coins out on the bed and counted them. Over two thousand kesh. A small fortune. A whore’s wages. Suddenly Vidya wanted nothing to do with the money and she was seized with an impulse to throw it away. Then practicality intervened. She would need money to live on and to get away from Rust. If she were careful, two thousand kesh would let her eat for two weeks and maybe still have enough to bribe passage off Rust.