Dream Thief Read online

  Beyond the netting he could see a bright mist of stars hanging in their inky void. Lower, he could see the upside-down crescent of the moon and the smaller blue thumbnail slice of the Earth. Spence flew into the netting, tucked his head down, and landed on his back. He pulled himself across the net to a near wall.

  Above him a group of cadets performed an intricate display of aerial acrobatics—doing flips and somersaults across the center of the dome. Around the perimeter several joggers sped along the track; another group ran perpendicular to the first. A couple of fluffy pidg birds floated down near the lift platform. No one seemed interested in getting up a game, so Spence swam to the edge of the net and walked up the great bulging sphere of the dome to the red strip designated as the track.

  The track’s surface bore a slightly irregular, bumpy grain which gave a runner that little extra bit of traction needed to get moving in zero gravity. Spence carefully set his feet on the track and then started walking smoothly, with exaggerated care; one false step and he would go spinning off toward the center of the dome. But he maintained his concentration and increased the pace, feeling the illusion of weight return to him. Actually it was only momentum he felt, and which held him to the track. Soon he was running easily around the inner wall of the dome.

  He caught the other joggers on the track and fell into pace with them. In the rhythm of running his muscles relaxed and the tension flowed from him. Automatically his body took over and his mind turned once again to the enigma of his dreams.

  That he dreamed was certain. His REM line on the scan showed plainly what he knew instinctively, and if he required further proof the emotional residue—that silt left behind when the angry waters had raced on—was real enough. Not to remember a dream was normal enough; one remembered only the tiniest fraction of one’s dreams over a lifetime. They simply flitted by in the night—spun out of the stuff of the subconscious and reabsorbed into the fabric of the psyche upon waking.

  But blackouts were not normal. Spence felt as if whole chunks of his life were missing. There were gaps in his memory which he could not cross, dark curtains behind which he could not see. That scared him.

  More than the nightmares, more than the cargo bay incident, he feared the helplessness, the utter defenselessness of not knowing what was happening to him. The carefully reasoned and researched framework of his life teetered precariously, threatening to topple completely, and he did not know what to do about it.

  He lowered his head and spurted past the others. His lungs burned and sweat stung his eyes, but he continued running faster and faster as if to escape the fear which came swimming out of the darkness of the star-spangled night beyond the netting. Closing his eyes he thrust the fear from him as if it were a solid object he could throw aside.

  AFTER HIS RUN Spence lay motionless in the center of the dome, turning slowly on his own axis like a minor planet. The warm glow of exertion throbbed through his limbs. He had reached that blissful state of exhaustion where body and spirit were reconciled one to the other and the universe hummed with peace.

  He listened to the play of others and watched through half-closed lids as the red line of the track circled him aimlessly. It was, he thought, a tribute to the supreme egotism of the mind that he seemed completely stationary while the entire space city of Gotham revolved around him. Around and around it went, spinning in its own lazy orbit—now the black mirror of the observation bubble, now the red line of the track.

  The red line of the track. Something about that seemed important. Spence jerked his head up and sent himself floundering away at an obtuse angle. In the same instant it came to him: the red line of the track was the red line of his sleep scan. He had meant to check it, but had forgotten, or the thought had been driven from his mind by the circumstances of his latest blackout.

  Suddenly it seemed more important than ever. He dove for the nearest wall and then propelled himself toward the lift platform. He raced back to the lab with his heart pounding and the certainty drumming in his brain that he was very close to finding an answer to the riddle of his dreams.

  10

  SPENCE SNAPPED THE SEAL and unrolled the strip to the beginning, watching meters and meters of paper tape unwind through his fingers. At the start of the tape he saw the date and time notation: EST 5/15/42 10:17 GM. The scan continued for nine and three-quarter hours without interruption. Each peak and every valley, every blip of an alpha spark or beta flash was duly recorded. He saw the minute fluctuations in cerebral blood flow; the rise and fall of body temperature, heart rate, and thyroid activity; the intermittent REM flutters. He saw, in short, the even, rhythmic progress of his night’s sleep. His every moment was accounted for. Undeniably so—he held the evidence in his own hands.

  But it was not enough. He turned to the cabinet where all the spools were kept. There were dozens of them, each one containing the polysomnographic information of one night’s sleep session. He lifted the row containing the scans of the last week. He checked each one. They were all there, labeled and sealed correctly.

  He checked the week before that and the next one, too. All was in order. Tickler was as precise as he was stuffy. Spence knew that if he looked at every spool over the last ten weeks he would find them in order. Still, a small gray shadow of doubt clung to his mind.

  He turned once more to the scan he had unrolled—the one from the night of his first blackout three days ago. He pulled the tape through his hands and examined it closely. It was no different from all the others.

  He spied the yellow plastic cover of the log book on the corner of the console and pulled it to him. On top of the log book lay a piece of green graph paper on which was plotted the averages Spence had requested for the last three sessions. Kurt must have come in and finished it while he was out. He glanced at the graph of the averages and then opened the log book and traced up the columns to the session of the fifteenth. He found no irregularities in any of the figures or information. He closed the book with the sinking feeling that all was in order and only he was out of sync.

  He threw the book down on the console and leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head. If an answer existed to his problems it would have to exist in some form in the hard data before him. Somewhere in the miles of tape, or in the figures in the book, the key to the locked room of his mind could be found. Of that he was certain. His faith in the scientific method stood on solid, unshakable rock.

  On a whim he swiveled to the data screen at one end of the console. The wafer-thin, half-silvered glass shone smooth as polished stone. “MIRA,” said Spence, “Spence Reston here. Ready for command.”

  A mellifluous female voice said, “Ready, Dr. Reston.”

  Spence uttered the simple command: “Compare entries for PSG Seven Series LTST five-fifteen to five-eighteen for similarities. Display only, please.”

  He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. Instantly the wafer screen flashed to life and the results began filling the screen. It seemed there were many similarities between one night’s scan and the next in terms of basic numerical components. All of the information gathered during a scanning session was translated into numbers for purposes of data storage and retrieval. They were all alike in many ways, and yet all different.

  The command was too broad. That much he could see, but he did not know how to narrow the question because he did not know precisely what he was looking for. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at the screen. Just what did he hope to find?

  After several minutes of hard thought he stood and-began pacing the cramped confines of the booth. Compare and contrast, he thought. That’s where you start on a fishing expedition of this type. Compare and contrast.

  He had already compared and that had not shown him anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps contrasting the same information would produce something. He turned to the screen and said, “Contrast PSG LTST entries for five-fifteen to five-eighteen. Display only, please.”

  The numb
ers vanished and in their place the screen began printing: Zero contrast within normal range of variability ±3%.

  In other words, dead end.

  Spence glanced at the digiton above the console. In a few minutes Tickler would arrive to begin the session. He did not want Tickler to find him here like this playing detective. A silly

  Thought, he knew—I have a perfect right to examine the data of my own experiment, for goodness sakes—but he preferred that Tickler should know nothing about his inquiry.

  Judging he had time for two more stabs in the dark, he said, “Compare PSG LTST Seven Series entries five-fifteen to five-eighteen for similarities of less than one per cent variability. Display only, please.” He nodded with satisfaction; by decreasing the percentage of variability he had narrowed the question significantly.

  In moments MIRA came back with its findings. The message read: Zero comparison. Spence frowned again. There were apparently no great similarities or differences in any of the scans— beyond the normal range of his individual sleep pattern.

  With a sigh he kicked back his chair. This kind of blind fumbling was useless. Unless he knew what he hoped to discover, no amount of random searching would help. “Thank you, MIRA. That is all for…”

  He stopped in mid-sentence. It occurred to him that he had not compared all of the scans, only those from the fifteenth to the eighteenth—the two dates encompassing his blackouts.

  “MIRA, compare all PSG LTST Seven Series entries. Display entries with similarities of less than one per cent variability.”

  There was a slight hesitation; the wafer screen went blank. He imagined he could hear the chips crackling with speeding electrons as MIRA wracked her magnetic memory.

  Spence sat on the edge of his chair and watched the clock tick away the seconds. Any moment Tickler would come walking in. Hurry! Spence muttered. Hurry!

  Then the words appeared. He read the message as it came up: PSG LTST Seven Series entries with less than 1% variability = 3/20 and 5/15.

  Jackpot! Spence jumped out of his chair and stared at the screen in disbelief. There it was; an anomaly too large to exist, its very presence an impossibility. If he had discovered it any other way he would have chalked it up to a computer glitch. But he had a strong suspicion that it was no glitch. He had uncovered a vital bit of information—stumbled blindly over it, more like—but there, spelled out in fluorescent orange, was the evidence.

  He picked up the yellow log book and paged through to the entry of 3/20. He pulled the sheet and placed it next to the entry of 5/15. They were not at all similar. Each entry in Tickler’s neat, precise hand was slightly different—not enough to vary a great deal, but enough for Spence to see that they were both unique.

  Apparently, MIRA had glitched after all. There was no similarity between the two scans.

  Spence heard the swoosh of the panel opening and Tickler’s quick footsteps entering the lab. He said, “That is all, MIRA. Thank you.”

  “Good evening. Dr. Reston.”

  “Good evening. Tickler.” Spence turned and forced what he hoped was a casual smile.

  “Are we ready to begin our session?” Tickler’s small, weasel eyes glanced from Spence to the wafer screen above the terminal.

  “Oh, I meant to tell you about that. I am canceling the session this evening.” Spence surprised himself with that announcement.

  “I don’t understand, sir. I’ve prepared everything—we’re all ready. If you—”

  “Never mind. It can wait. I have something else for you to do tonight. You and Kurt, that is. I want you to run averages for the last two weeks. I think a curve may emerge that we may want to explore. That should take you most of the session, I think.”

  “But—pardon my asking—what are you going to do?”

  Spence could see that Tickler was upset. The inflexible little man did not bend easily to the unexpected.

  “I’m going to a function at the director’s suite. I imagine it will be rather late when I get back; so when you finish you can go. I will expect to see you tomorrow first shift.” Spence turned to leave. Tickler’s jaw pumped the air in silence. “Yes? Was there something else?”

  Tickler shook his head. He had recovered himself. “No, I imagine we can handle it from here,” he snapped.

  “Good night, then,” said Spence, stepping from the booth. He smiled a devious smile to himself as he crossed the lab to his quarters. A quick change and he would still make the party in plenty of time.

  11

  SPENCE DONNED A CLEAN, informal, nonregulation jumpsuit and struck off for the director’s quarters. He was pleased with himself for remembering the party at the last second—it was perfect. He wanted to get away from the lab and out of Tickler’s presence to think about his discovery. What exactly, if anything, did it mean?

  At the time it had seemed electrifyingly significant. Now, as he hurried along the crowded trafficways of Gotham flowing with the changing shifts, his startling revelation seemed a little on the trivial side. There were at least a dozen different ways of accounting for the match lip of the two entries. Spence ticked them off one by one as he dodged and elbowed his way to the Zandersons’.

  By the time he arrived at the buff-colored portal he had convinced himself that his discovery lacked any real bones. It would never stand up. There had to be more, something else that would tell him what this bare shred of fact meant. What that something was he had no idea.

  “Spencer! I’m so glad to see you. Come in!” Ari beamed at him over the threshold as the panel slid open. Spence shook himself out of his reverie and returned her smile.

  “I hope I’m not too late.” She drew him into the room which was humming with the conversation of the guests. Several turned to regard the newcomer with frank, disapproving glances; most ignored his entrance.

  “I think some of your guests are sorry I bothered to show up at all.”

  “Nonsense, silly. You just haven’t been properly introduced. Come along. Daddy will want to do the honors.”

  Ari steered him into the gathering and around conversational cliques to where her father held forth at a buffet, urging tiny sandwiches on doubtful patrons. He was surrounded by women—the wives of faculty and fellows, decided Spence—who tittered politely at his jokes while they picked among the delicacies offered on the board.

  “Daddy, look who’s here.” Ari took her father’s arm and expertly wheeled him around to face Spence.

  “Dr. Reston! Good of you to come.”

  “Kind of you to invite me.”

  “Here, get yourself a plate and dig in. The rumaki is delicious.”

  “Thank you, maybe a little later, I—”

  “Daddy, I told Spencer that you would introduce him to some of the others. Won’t you, please?”

  “Oh, of course. I’d be delighted to. Look—there’s Olmstead Packer, head of High Energy. Come along. Who’s that with him? Another new face, I believe.” Director Zanderson piloted them both forcefully ahead through the standing clusters of socializers. Spence bobbed along in his wake. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ari disappear into a knot of partygoers with a plate of hors d’oeuvres. He abandoned himself to his immediate fate.

  “Tell me. Dr. Reston, have you thought any further about the research trip?”

  “Why, yes. I’ve considered it—”

  “I’m not pressing, not pressing. Oh, here we are. Gentlemen!” The director broke in on the two men, clapping a hand on a shoulder of each. “I’d like you to meet Dr. Reston, BioPsych.”

  Before any further introductions could take place, the man previously identified as Packer thrust out a hand and said, “Glad to meet you. I’m Olmstead Packer and this is my colleague Adjani Rajwandhi.”

  “I’ll leave you gentlemen to become better acquainted. Don’t forget to go by the buffet, now. Don’t be bashful.” The director left Spence in the care of his new acquaintances and plunged back into the swirl.

  Olmstead Packer laughed heartily and said,
“There goes a dynamo! A roly-poly dynamo. Why, if we could harness that energy—just think!”

  “These HiEn bookworms!” remarked Rajwandhi. “They cannot stand to see anything without an outlet in it. They think all the world is a power grid.”

  “Not true, Adjani. Not true at all. The universe is one big reactor, and we’re all subatomic particles bounding around in our random orbits.” Packer smiled broadly.

  Spence took to the big, red-bearded cherub immediately. With his kinky red hair that looked like rusty steel wool and his droopy-lidded brown eyes he appeared an almost comic figure always on the verge of laughing out loud.

  Adjani, on the other hand, was a slight mongoose of a man who looked at the world through keen eyes, bright and hard as black diamonds. He had about him an air of mystery which Spence found intriguing and slightly exotic.

  “Dr. Rajwandhi is a fellow of my department—” began Packer.

  “But not of your discipline!” interrupted Adjani.

  “No—sadly not of our discipline.”

  “What project are you attached to, Dr. Rajwandhi?” asked Spence politely.

  “To my colleagues I am just Adjani, please. I am currently assigned to the plasma project. This is under Dr. Packer’s supervision.”

  “You flatter me, Adjani,” roared Packer, his teeth flashing white from out of the auburn tangle of his beard. He said to Spence, “Adjani here is under no one’s supervision. The man has not yet been born who can keep up with him, and he does not know how to take direction.”

  “Can I help it if God granted me full measure of what other men possess only in part?”

  “You’ll get no argument from me, snake charmer. I’ll sing your praises from here to Jupiter and back.” Turning once more to Spence he explained, “Adjani is our Spark Plug—and the best in the business.”