3) Double Star One: Seven reports. Large red sun, variable blue one; extraterrestrial being, horned, associated with white stone slab.
4) Double Star Two: Two reports. One yellow star, one white one, both much larger than our sun. Matter streaming from both stars forming veil around whole system emitting intense red aura in sky of planet.
5) Sphere of Light: Six reports. Planet positioned within globular star cluster so populous that constant brilliant light encloses it on all sides. Inhabited by complex medusoid/colonial atmosphere-dwelling creatures.
6) Blue Giant: Two reports. Enormous blue star giving off fierce output of energy. Planetary landscape molten, bubbling. Ethereal inhabitants not clearly visualized.
“Data entry,” Elszabet said.
She began to post the morning’s haul of dream reports.
April Cranshaw, Blue Giant.
Tomás Menendez, Green World.
Father Christie, Double Star Two.
Poor Father Christie. He took the dreams worse than any of the others, always interpreting each one as God’s personal message to him. He still hated to give them up. Every morning she had to go through the same struggle with him, usually needing to double-pick him to get him clean. Maybe if we weren’t picking him, she thought, the dreams would lose some of their transcendental power for him, and he’d be easier about the whole thing. On the other hand, if he weren’t getting picked he’d have to contend with the notion that God had come to him in half a dozen different bizarre alien guises over the past few weeks. And most likely he’d be in deep schiz by now, far beyond retrieval, if he had access to more than one dream at a time. Better that he should think each one was his first.
Elszabet continued with the day’s entries.
Philippa Bruce, Sphere of Light.
Alleluia CX1133, Nine Suns.
She felt something that seemed like a headache beginning to invade her, just the ghost of it, a tickling little throb around her temples. Strange. She never got headaches. Hardly ever. Time of the month, maybe? No, she thought. After-effects of getting punched by Nick Double Rainbow? But that was over a week ago. General tension and stress, then? All this puzzling over weird dreams? Whatever, the sensation was getting a little worse. Pressure behind her eyes, unfamiliar, nasty. She touched the neutralizer node on her watch and gave herself a buzz of alpha sound. First time she’d done that in ages. The pressure eased off a little.
Going onward. Teddy Lansford, Nine Suns.
A knock at the door. Elszabet frowned and glanced at the view-screen. She saw Dan Robinson outside, lounging amiably against the frame of the door.
“You spare a minute?” he asked. “Got something new for you.”
She let him in. He had to stoop crossing the threshold. Robinson was an elongated man, basketball-player physique, all arms and legs. He practically filled the little room. Elszabet’s office was nothing more than a small bare functional cubicle, floor of rough gray planks, tiny window, orange glow-light floating overhead. Not even a desk or a computer terminal, just a couple of chairs facing the floor-to-ceiling data wall. She liked it that way.
Robinson peered at the data wall. The Teddy Lansford entry was still showing. He nodded toward it.
“That’s his fourth one, isn’t it?”
“Third,” Elszabet said.
“Third. Even so, why does he get the dreams and not the rest of us? It doesn’t figure, that only one staff member should get the dreams.”
“Teddy’s the only one willing to admit it, maybe,” she said. She didn’t amplify the statement. Naresh Patel’s lone Green World dream was still a confidential matter between him and Elszabet, and would stay that way as long as Patel wanted it that way.
“You suspect that other staff people are hiding them?” Robinson asked. His eyes were suddenly very wide, very white in his chocolate toned face. “You think I am, maybe?”
“Are you?”
“You serious?”
“Well, are you?” she asked, a little too sharply. She wondered why she was being so sharp with him. He was wondering too, obviously.
“Hey. Come off it, Elszabet.”
The headache was back. She felt the pressure again, stronger than before, a heavy throbbing at the temples. She shook her head, trying to clear it.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
“You know I’m dying to experience one of those dreams. But so far it seems Lansford’s the only lucky one.”
“So far, yes.”
Except for Naresh Patel, she thought. And that had been just one time.
“Why do you think that is?” Robinson asked.
“Not a clue.” Elszabet hesitated and said—a stab in the dark—” Could it be that the dreaming or lack of it is a function of emotional resilience? The patients are extremely wobbly around the psyche, otherwise they wouldn’t be here, after all. That must lay them open to any manner of disturbances that staff people wouldn’t be vulnerable to. Such as these dreams.”
“And is Teddy Lansford wobbly around the psyche?”
“Well, he’s homosexual.”
“So what?”
She rubbed her forehead lightly. Something hammering away in there. It embarrassed her to press for an alpha buzz in front of Dan Robinson.
“So nothing, I guess,” she said. “A silly hypothesis.” And Naresh Patel isn’t particularly wobbly around the psyche either, Elszabet told herself. Or gay, for that matter. “Lansford’s actually pretty sturdy emotionally, don’t you think?”
“I’d say so.”
She said, “I can’t tell you, then. Maybe when we have more data we’ll be able to figure it better. Right now I don’t know.” Brusquely she added, “You said there was something new you wanted to talk to me about?”
He looked at her. “Are you okay, Elszabet?”
“Sure. No, not really. Beginnings of a headache.” Something beyond just beginnings, now. It was really banging away. “Why, does it show that much?”
“You seem a little touchy, is all. Impatient. Sharp. Short. Not much like your usual self.”
Elszabet shrugged. “One of those days, I guess. One of those weeks. Look, I told you I was sorry for snapping at you like that before, didn’t I?” Then she said more softly, “Let’s start this all over, okay? You wanted to see me. What’s up, Dan?”
“There’s a new dream. Number Seven. Double Star Three.”
“How’s that? I thought we had all the reports for today.”
“Well, now there’s one more. This one courtesy of April Cranshaw, half an hour ago.”
With a shake of her head Elszabet said, “We’ve already got April’s entry. She reported the Blue Giant dream for last night.”
“This isn’t last night,” Robinson said. “It’s this morning, after pick.”
That was startling. “What? A daytime dream?”
“So it seems. April was shy about admitting it. I think she was afraid we’d send her back for a second picking this morning. But it was on her conscience and she finally came in with it. This may not be the first daytime dream she’s had.”
“She’s now had more dreams than anyone,” Elszabet said.
“Right at the top of the sensitivity curve, yes. I think she knows that too. And is a little troubled about it.”
“What kind of dream was this?”
“This is what I jotted down,” Robinson said.