Perchance. Michael Kurland
This place is not.”
“So,” Dr. Faineworth said. “You go to the same place each time?”
“I seem to,” the girl agreed.
“We will talk more about this,” Faineworth said.
“I want to get out of here,” the girl told him.
“Your request will be forwarded to the proper authorities,” Faineworth told her. “In the meantime, please bear with me. I am trying to help you regain your memories.”
“I haven’t much choice, it seems,” the girl said. “Please have the guard bring my clothes.”
“That I will do,” Faineworth agreed.
“Did you notice the girl’s reaction when I told her you were from the CDE?” Faineworth asked Edbeck as they walked back to the office.
“I wondered why you did that,” Edbeck commented. “But the girl had no reaction that I could see.”
“That’s it!” Faineworth said. “She seems to have good recall for events and facts outside of her direct life—a common syndrome in amnesia. Yet she reacted to the CDE not at all. Most people react strongly to any mention of our government’s most secret police—apparent strong approval masking cringing fear. But our Exxa seems ignorant of the existence of the organization.”
“That is so,” Edbeck agreed. “What does it mean?”
“That my theory may be correct. That young lady may not be from around here.”
“This city?” Edbeck enquired.
“This universe,” Faineworth replied.
* * * * * * *
At four o’clock the next morning Dobbins came to Delbit’s room and shook him awake. “Come,” he said.
Delbit groggily slipped into his pants and shirt and pulled his boots on. “Where?” he asked.
“Downstairs. The doctor wants you.”
Dr. Faineworth was waiting impatiently in his office. “Are you fully awake?” he asked Delbit. “Come, sit here. Have a muffin. Prepare to go to work.”
Delbit took the plate of muffins and buttered one. “Work?” He looked fuzzily about the room. “I don’t think I’m awake. It takes me a while to wake up in the morning. And it’s not even morning.”
“Have some coffee. Do you drink coffee? It will wake you up. Dobbins, get him some coffee. Here, put a lot of cream in it.”
Delbit sipped at the coffee and ate his muffin. “What—?” he said, and then paused, considering what to ask.
“What are we all doing up at this hour?” Dr. Faineworth rubbed his hands together. “This is the true witching hour, my lad—the dreaming hour. For most of the night we sleep soundly, dreamlessly; but during the early-morning hours we begin to dream. You and I are going now to capture one or more of those dreams. Finish your coffee.”
“Yes, sir.” Delbit drank up his coffee and stared impassively into the immediate future like a man examining the edge of a cliff he is about to leap off.
Dr. Faineworth looked up at the clock on his far wall and strummed his fingers on the desk. “All right. Enough coffee. Enough time wasted,” he said a couple of minutes later. He took off his suit jacket and wrapped a white laboratory smock around himself. “Let us see about entering the land of dreams. Come with me.”
Delbit was taken to a small, white-painted room down the corridor. “Exxa is asleep in the next room,” Faineworth told him. “We call it the sleep research room. She wears a special helmet, with built-in electrodes. You will don a similar one, and lie down here.” The doctor indicated a black leather couch in the center of the room. “But you will not sleep. You will receive mental images through this device here”—the doctor pointed to a large black box that was humming ominously in the corner—“and report back to me on them. Is this not quite simple? Good. Now lie down.”
With a feeling that might have been shared by St. Barnabas as he prepared to face four hungry lions, Delbit lay down and allowed them to strap the leather helmet to his head.
CHAPTER THREE
She was in a long corridor, an endless corridor, racing past rows of too-solid oaken doors that were barred against her to the left and right. Gas lamps flickered in twisted brackets along the wall, and strange, horrible faces peered out from unexpected corners, their mouths twisted into grotesque greetings, and then disappeared at her approach.
She was searching for something—something—what?—she couldn’t quite remember. There was something intangible that she needed desperately, and it was hidden from her behind one of these doors. But which one? The convoluted brass markings on the doors shrieked of hidden knowledge, scribed in a secret but once familiar script. But try as she might, they meant nothing to her, and the knobs shrank from her grasp.
Onward she went, as the corridor widened, and the sky flashed orange from the great globe of a dying sun. She turned and found that the corridor had disappeared.
She turned back.
Wide, empty plains surrounded her now, endless miles of arid desert—dangerous, forbidding, deadly desert. The giant calla plants stood at distant intervals, their crests as high as their taproots were deep, and they whistled softly for her to approach. But she knew it would mean death.
“Hello, “ the man’s voice said. “Where are we?”
Man’s voice?
She spun around. There was a man—no, not more than a boy—sitting—(sitting?)—sitting at a table—(table?)—a few yards from her. It was a round metal table, painted white, with a hole in the center. A white metal pole went through the hole and spread a wide umbrella over the table and the two chairs.
This was somehow wrong. Out of place. Where had she seen the boy before?
Could he be one of the Golden Orb? She looked at him closely, but could not detect the stain.
Was he of Nimber blood? His ears were not pointed.
She closed her eyes and turned around, and turned back and opened her eyes, and he was gone.
Was gone.
—Wasn’t gone at all. And neither were the table and chairs.
“Who are you?” she asked. “And what do you here?”
“I’ve been sent to watch you,” he said. “We weren’t sure whether you would be aware of me or not. My name is Delbit Quint. This is very strange.”
“What is?” she asked.
“I’m on your side, I promise you,” the lad said. “Don’t worry. But don’t trust Dr. Faineworth as far as you can spit.”
“You do not speak sense,” she said. She sat at the table with him, under the crystal towers, and they sipped tall cups of blue fizz. “Tell me of yourself,” she said.
“You’re dreaming,” he said.
“That is possible,” she agreed. “Is not all a dream? And if not mine, then whose?”
“No, no,” Delbit said. “I don’t mean in general. I mean here. Now. This is a dream.”
The girl smiled at him. “Then I am dreaming you?” She reached across the dining-car table and patted his hand as the train entered a tunnel.
“Yes...no.” Delbit looked around as the area went dark. “Hello?”
They were standing atop a giant cube of polished metal, which gleamed silver in the bright, though sunless, sky. Around them was a flat, burnished plain, dotted with distant geometric shapes.
“This is very disconcerting,” Delbit said.
The