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