"That's certain," Joe said. "But the question is, which of us is right?"
"We'll never find out," Rend said, "unless we can return to Earth."
That ended the discussion.
Toward the end of the week, Barrent received another invitation from the
Dream Shop, more strongly worded than the first. He decided to discharge
the obligation that evening. He checked the temperature, and found that
it had risen into the high nineties. Wiser now in Omegan ways, he packed
a small satchel full of cold-weather clothing, and started out.
The Dream Shop was located in the exclusive Death's Row section. Barrent
went in, and found himself in a small, sumptuously furnished waiting
room. A sleek young man behind a polished desk gave him an artificial
smile.
"Could I be of service?" the young man asked. "My name is Nomis J.
Arkdragen, assistant manager in charge of nightside dreams."
"I'd like to know something about what happens," Barrent said. "How one
gets dreams, what kind of dreams, all that sort of thing."
"Of course," Arkdragen said. "Our service is easily explained,
Citizen--"
"Barrent. Will Barrent."
Arkdragen nodded and checked a name from a list in front of him. He
looked up and said, "Our dreams are produced by the action of drugs upon
the brain and the central nervous system. There are many drugs which
produce the desired effect. Among the most useful are heroin, morphine,
opium, coca, hemp, and peyote. All those are Earth products. Found only
on Omega are Black Slipper, nace, manicee, tri-narcotine, djedalas, and
the various products of the carmoid group. Any and all of these are
dream-inducers."
"I see," Barrent said. "Then you sell drugs."
"Not at all!" Arkdragen said. "Nothing so simple, nothing so crude. In
ancient times on Earth, men administered drugs to themselves. The dreams
which resulted were necessarily random in nature. You never knew what
you would dream about, or for how long. You never knew if you would have
a dream or a nightmare, a horror or a delight. This uncertainty has been
removed from the modern Dream Shop. Nowadays, our drugs are carefully
measured, mixed, and metered for each individual. There is an absolute
precision in dream-making, ranging from the Nirvana-like calm of Black
Slipper through the multicolored hallucinations of peyotl and
tri-narcotine, to the sexual fantasies induced by nace and morphine,
and at last to the memory-resurrecting dreams of the carmoid group."
"It's the memory-resurrecting dreams I'm interested in," Barrent said.