He found a bare place in the dry grass that looked good for making a fire and began to arrange twigs and other bits of kindling. He had been working for about ten minutes, and the fire was going nicely, when he became aware that Charley had returned and was standing behind him, watching.
“Tom?”
“Yeah, Charley?”
The black-bearded man hunkered down next to him and tossed a narrow log on the fire. “Good job,” he said. “I like a neat fire, everything lined up straight like this.” He moved a little closer to Tom and peered around this way and that as if making sure no one else was nearby. “I heard what you were saying when you were in that fit,” Charley went on. His voice was low, barely more than a whisper. “About the green world. About the crystal people. Their shining skins. Their eyes, like diamonds. How did you say the eyes were arranged?”
“In rows of three, on each side of their heads.”
“Four sides to the head?”
“Four, yes.”
Charley was silent a while, poking at the fire. Then he said, in an even quieter voice, “I dreamed of a place just like that, about six nights ago. And then again night before last. Green sky, crystal people, eyes like diamonds, four rows of three around their heads. I saw it like I was seeing it in a show. And now you come along talking about the same place, shouting it out like you’re possessed, and it’s just the same place I saw. How in hell is that possible, that we could both have the same crazy dream? You tell me: How in hell is that possible?”
2
THEsun was still half an hour on the far side of the Sierra Nevada when Elszabet awoke and stepped out on the porch of her cabin, naked, just the way she had slept. The coolness of the summer morning enfolded her. A soft blanket of fog lingered on out of the night, shrouding the tops of the redwoods and drifting more thinly down to ground level.
Beautiful, she thought. From all sides came the quiet plunking sounds of condensation, clear cool droplets falling from the lofty branches and hitting the soft carpet of deep brown duff. The hundreds of sword-ferns on the hillside in front of her cabin glistened as though they had been polished. Beautiful. Beautiful. Even the bluejays, shrieking as they started their day’s work, seemed beautiful.
An altogether gorgeous morning. There was no other kind here, winter or summer. You had to like to be an early riser, here at the Nepenthe Center, because all the useful mindpick work necessarily was done before breakfast. But that was all right. Elszabet couldn’t imagine not liking to awaken at dawn, when the dawn was a dawn like this. And there was no reason not to go to sleep early. What was there to do in the evenings, out here in the boonies hundreds of miles north of San Francisco?
She touched the face of her watch and the morning’s schedule came scrolling up in clear glowing letters:
0600
Father Christie, A Cabin
Ed Ferguson, B Cabin
Alleluia, C Cabin
0630
Nick Double Rainbow, B Cabin
Tomás Menendez, C Cabin
0700—
A quick delicious shower, using the outdoor rig behind her cabin, first. Then she slipped into shorts and halter and made a fast breakfast of cider and cheese. No sense bothering to go all the way up to the staff mess hall this early in the morning. By five of six Elszabet was on her way up the steps of A Cabin, taking them two at a time. Father Christie was there already, slouched in the mindpick chair while Teddy Lansford bustled around him getting the pick set up.
Father Christie didn’t look good. He rarely did, this hour of the morning. This morning he seemed even farther off center than usuaclass="underline" pale, sweaty-jowled, yellowish around the eyeballs, almost a little dazed-looking. He was a short plump man, forty-five or so, with a great mass of curling grayish hair and a soft pleading face. Today he was wearing his clerical outfit, which never managed to look as though it fit him. The collar was soiled; the black jacket was rumpled and askew as if he had buttoned it incorrectly.
But he brightened as she entered: phony brightness, stage cheer. “Good morning, Elszabet. What a lovely sight you are!”
“Am I?” She smiled. He was always full of little compliments. Always trying for little peeks at her thighs and breasts, too, whenever he thought she wouldn’t notice. “You sleep well, Father?”
“I’ve had better nights.”
“Also worse ones?”
“Worse also, I suppose.” His hands were trembling. If she hadn’t known better, she would have guessed he’d been drinking. But of course that was impossible. You didn’t drink any more, not even on the sly, once you had had a conscience chip implanted in your esophagus.
Lansford called out from the control console, “Blood sugar okay, respiration, iodine uptake, everything checks. Delta waves present and fully secured. Everything looks fine. I’m popping the Father’s pick module into the slot now. Elszabet?”
“Hold it a second. What reading do you get on mood?”
“The usual mild depression, and—hey, no, not depression, it’s agitation, actually. What the hell, Father, you’re supposed to be depressed this time of morning!”
“I’m sorry,” said Father Christie meekly. The comers of his lips were twitching. “Does that upset your programming for me?”
The technician laughed. “This machine, it can compensate for anything. It’s already done it. We’re all set if you are. You ready for the pick, Father?”
“Any time,” he said, not sounding as if he meant it.
“Elszabet? Okay?”
“No, wait,” Elszabet said to Lansford. “Look at the lines there. Screen two. He’s past threshold on anxiety. I want to talk to him first.”
“Should I stay?” the technician asked without much show of concern.
“You go over to B and set up for Mr. Ferguson, okay? Give me a couple of minutes alone with the Father.”
“Sure thing,” Lansford said, and went out.
The priest peered up at Elszabet, blinking like an uncomfortable schoolboy about to be lectured by a truant officer. “I’m all right,” he said. “I’m fine. Really, I am.”
“I don’t quite think so.”
“No. No, I’m not.”
Gently she said, “What is it then, Father?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Are you frightened of the pick?”
“No. Why should I be? I’ve gone under the pick plenty of times before, haven’t I?” He looked at her in sudden uncertainty. “Haven’t I?”
“Over a hundred times. You’ve been here four months.”
“That’s what I thought. April, May, June, July. The pick’s nothing new for me. Why should I be scared of it?”
“No reason at all. The pick’s an instrument of healing. You know that.”
“Yes.”
“But your lines are all over the screen. Something’s got you up in a turmoil this morning, and it must have been something that happened in the night, yes? Because your readings were fine yesterday. What was it, Father? A dream?”
He fidgeted. He was looking worse and worse by the moment.
“Can we go outside, Elszabet? I think some fresh air would do me good.”
“Of course. I was thinking the same thing.”
Elszabet led him out to the back porch of the little wooden building and made him stand still beside her, inhaling deeply. She towered over him, almost a head and a half taller; but then, she towered over many men. All the same, the difference in height made him seem even more like a bewildered boy, though he was ten years older than she was. She could sense the physical need in him, the inarticulate urge to touch her and the powerful fear of doing it. After a moment she took his hand in hers. It was within the rules of the Center to offer the patients some physical comfort.