“And if I should find out?”
“Tell the person who possessed the technician that you stumbled on the same project and destroyed it utterly. In order to do that convincingly, you should...”
“Why do you pause?”
“Can I trust you? Somehow, you do not seem sufficiently... shattered by the realization that in the dream worlds we are dealing with reality. The day when I was at last convinced, I thought for a time that I might go mad. I wanted to go up to the corridor of dreams and rip all the cables free, smash all the dials.”
“You can trust me,” she said evenly.
“Then, in order to convince the person who did the damage, you should take a look at the project. It is called Project Tempo. I will explain to you exactly how to find it. It is quite difficult because of the lack of contacts in the surrounding countryside. I have been most successful through using the drivers of vehicles, and it is a matter of luck to emerge near a road. The last time it took me so long that I had but a little more than an hour to... do what I planned.”
“What are you doing when you go there?”
“Explaining to Bard Lane just what we are.”
“How do you find it?”
“Before I tell you, I must have your solemn promise that you will do no damage to the project. Do you promise?”
“I will do no damage,” she said, and in her thoughts she added, on the first visit, at least.
He opened a case on the floor. “Here,” he said, “is a map I made here after committing it to memory on Earth.”
She knelt beside him. She watched his finger trace the possible routes of entry to the project area.
Nine
Dr. Sharan Inly sat at her desk, her hands pressed against her eyes, her fingernails digging into her forehead just below the hair line. She wished with all her heart that she had become a stenographer, or a housewife, or a welder.
You could deal with humans, and be interested in them as humans even when they were cases duplicating those in the texts. Yet, as you treated them, you kept a tiny bit of yourself in reserve. It was self-protection. And then you would run into a case that would break your heart, because somehow you had gotten too involved with the individual as a person, not as a case.
“I hope you’ve got an explanation,” Bard Lane said coldly as he slammed into her office.
“Shut the door and sit down, Dr. Lane,” she said with a tired smile.
He sat down. His face had a drawn look. “Dammit, Sharan, my desk is piled high. Adamson needs help. The fool committee that wants to administer the death kiss to this whole project is waiting. I know you can bring anyone here at any time, but I think you might have checked first. Just a little consideration for the amount of work I—”
“How did you sleep last night?”
He stared at her, stood up with determination. “Fine, and I eat well, too. I even take walks. Want me to make a muscle for you?”
“Sit down, Dr. Lane!” she said crisply. “I’m doing my job. Please cooperate.”
He sat down slowly, a look of fear in his eyes, growing fear. “What is this, Sharan? I guess I slept well enough. I felt tired this morning, though.”
“What time did you get to bed?”
“A little before midnight. I was up at seven.”
“Thomas Bellinger, on the routine guard report, noted that you went into your office at ten minutes after two this morning.”
Bard gasped. “The man’s mad! No! Wait a minute. If somebody could plant a man who looks like me... Have you alerted all guards?”
She slowly shook her head. Her eyes were sad. “No, Bard. That won’t work. You passed the full test series with flying colors just this week, but it still won’t work. You noticed that Bess Reilly wasn’t in your office this morning?”
He frowned. “She’s sick today. She phoned from her quarters.”
“She phoned from here, Bard. I asked her to. Bess was a little behind in her work. She went in early this morning. She went into your office and took yesterday’s tape off the dictation machine and took it out to her desk to transcribe it. When she started to listen to it, she thought you were playing some sort of joke. She listened some more and it frightened her. She very properly brought it directly to me. I’ve been over it twice. Would you care to hear it?”
He said softly, “Dictation... a funny nightmare is coming back to me, Sharan. Silly thing, like most of them are. It seems I had something that I had to get down before it went out of my mind. And I dreamed I...”
“Then you walked in your sleep, Bard. Listen to what you said.”
She moved the small speaker closer to his chair, depressed the switch on the playback machine.
It was unmistakably Bard Lane’s voice. “Dr. Lane, I am taking this method of communicating with you. Do not be alarmed and do not doubt me. I am physically nearly four and a half light-years from you at this moment. But I have projected my thoughts into your mind and I have taken over your body to serve the purposes of the moment. My name is Raul Kinson and I have been watching your project for some time. I am anxious for it to succeed, as it is your world’s only chance to free itself from those of us whose visitations are unprincipled, who only want to destroy. I do not want to destroy. I want to help you create. But there are dangers that I can warn you about, dangers which you do not, as yet, understand. Take warning from what happened when your technician, Kornal, was seized by one of us. We are the survivors on your parent planet. I do not wish to tell you too much at this moment. Be assured that my intentions are friendly. Do not be alarmed. Do not fall into the logical error of assuming that this is an indication of mental unbalance. I will attempt to communicate with you in a more direct manner a bit later. Hear me out when I do.”
Sharan clicked the switch to the off position. “You see?” she said softly. “The same delusion as before. This is just a further refinement of it. I’m both glad and sorry that Miss Reilly brought it to me. But here it is, Bard. Now do you think I should have sent for you?”
“Of course,” he whispered. “Of course.”
“What am I to do?” Sharan asked.
“Do your job,” he said. His mouth was a hard, bloodless line.
Her voice was dispassionate, but her hand trembled as she handed him the note previously prepared. “This will admit you for observation. I see no need to assign an orderly to you while you pack what you’ll need. I’ll advise Adamson that he’s acting chief until you’re replaced.”
He took the note and left her office without a word. After he closed the door softly behind him, she buried her face in the crook of her arm, her shoulders hunched over the desk. She pounded gently on the desk top with her clenched left fist.
Bard Lane walked from the hospital lounge into his room at the end of the corridor. He wore the beltless bathrobe they had issued to him, the soft plastic slippers. He lay on the bed and tried to read the magazine he had carried in from the lounge. It was a news digest, and seemed to contain nothing except hollow-sounding absurdities.