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    The Dreamfields by K.W.
            Jeter
   This was the dream of Arthur. He thought there was come into this
land griffons and serpents, and he thought they burnt and slew all the
people in the land, and then he thought he fought with them, and they
did him passing great harm and wounded him full sore, but at the last
he slew them. When the king awaked he was passing heavy of his dream.

                                     —Sir Thomas Malory, Morte d'Arthur



                       PART ONE
                        The Base
                           CHAPTER 1
   Something had struck the earth and it wouldn't stop ringing. Or so it
seemed. Ralph Metric took another pull at the beer can sweating in his
hand and watched the heat waves shimmer on the rocks and sand beyond
the glass. Below the glaring window the air conditioner whined.

    "I just think it's kind of strange," came Stimmitz's voice again. It cut
through the aural haze produced by Bach cantatas dribbling into the room
at low volume. "Don't you? Strange, a little?"

   "Huh?" Ralph turned, from the window. A phantom desert in green and
purple slowly ebbed from his vision, revealing Stimmitz sitting in the dark
end of the room. On one of the bookshelves behind him the reels of his
tape deck inexorably rotated.
   "Strange." The too-angular legs shifted their positions, like some part of
a mantis flexing. "Don't you think it is?"

   Somehow I got lost here, thought Ralph. While I was looking out the
window? I can't even remember what we were talking about. "Strange?"
The word itself had gotten a little fuzzy from repetition, and beer. Bach,
too. He discovered he was running his thumb around the top of the beer
can at the same speed the tape reels were going around. He switched the
beer to his other hand and slid the first into his pocket. "What's strange?"
he said.

   "Oh. You know." Stimmitz looked past Ralph towards the window.
"Operation Dreamwatch, the whole thing. The uniforms and the
pretend-military bit. I mean, if they really want discipline so tight, why'd
they hire people… like Glogolt, for Pete's sake. That jerk's been here longer
than any of us and he still hasn't learned how to do the regulation knot in
his tie." Stimmitz's eyes shifted a fraction of an inch and refocused on
Ralph.

  "Glogolt's got quite a stack, of deficiency notices." Ralph interposed the
beer can between Stimmitz's eyes and his own and took another swallow.

   "Yeah, but they don't get rid of him. So they must have some kind of
use for him, right? But what good is somebody like Glogolt? Or any of the
people here, for that matter."

  Ralph laid the cool damp of the beer can against his cheek and said
nothing. Stimmitz was poking at a group of thoughts that had been
wadding up in Ralph's gut for some time now. About the size of a
basketball, thought Ralph glumly. That's how they feel.

   "I mean, this is an expensive set-up," Stimmitz's mouth moved again
beneath his hardening eyes. "This all costs money, a lot of it. How come
there's so much Muehlenfeldt money being dumped into this project while
there's a war going on?"

   "Muehlenfeldt money?" Through Ralph's mind flashed a brief image of
the distinguished Senator M. cranking a printing press in a dank
basement.

  "Of course. This whole thing's bankrolled through their Ultimate
Foundation."
   "So? Somebody's got to pay for it."

   "Yeah, but why?" A slight increase in the volume of Stimmitz's voice
eclipsed the murmuring Bach cantata. "What's the whole project doing
here? What's it for?"

   "It's for 125 dollars a week," said Ralph with beer-laden profundity.
"Plus room and board."

   "Come on."

    "Yeah, well, they told us what it's for, didn't they? Therapy, right? For
all those messed-up little juvenile delinquents over there at the Thronsen
Home."

   Stimmitz was quiet for a moment, then spoke very softly. "Do you
believe that?"

  A thin layer of Bach crept through the room for several seconds. "I
guess so," said Ralph finally. "Why shouldn't I?"

   "I went into Thronsen yesterday," said Stimmitz. "Helga and I did. We
cut a hole in the perimeter fence and went into the main building—"

   "Hey, you're not supposed to do that."

   Stimmitz looked annoyed, then shrugged. "Sometimes you have to do
things you're not supposed to."

   "So what'd you find?" Ralph's curiosity had started to unfold a little.

    From the tape came a soprano solo, then the chorus again, sounding as
if from a great distance. "Maybe I'd better not tell you just now," said
Stimmitz. "Maybe later."

  "I hate that," said Ralph in disgust. "I hate it when people do that.
Teasing you with some crummy little secret, and then they won't tell you."

   "You probably wouldn't believe me, anyway. Not yet at least." He
seemed to be drawing away from the conversation. "You're still operating
out of a whole different universe."

   The last sounded like something Stimmitz had always talked about
before, but to which Ralph had never paid attention. "Don't start that." He
leaned over to deposit the beer can on a low table already crowded with
empties. The can slid from his grasp and dropped the last inch to the table
top. A few drops of warm fluid splashed out of the little opening and
flecked his hand. "All this talk about universes—" He paused to hold down
a belch, "—is just a way of avoiding the real problem." Which is? mocked a
portion of him that the beer hadn't reached. He ignored it and headed for
the bathroom. A couple more empty cans fell over on the floor as his feet
hit them.

  "Just remember," said Stimmitz as Ralph crossed in front of him,
"what went on today. While you were here."

   "Sure." Ralph pushed open the door. "Remember this conversation
always. Changed my whole life."

   "Seriously." Stimmitz's voice followed him into the smallest room of his
apartment. "In case… uh, something happens. And I don't get around to
talking to you about this again."

   Ralph nodded and closed the door without saying anything. What was
that all about? he wondered.

   When he came out, the Bach cantatas tape had ended. The loose end of
the tape fluttered as the take-up reel continued to spin. The chair in front
of the bookshelves was empty.

  Ralph went to the tape deck and switched it off. Small lights died and
went out. "Stimmitz?" he said, turning around.

   The room was silent except for the air conditioner. Outside the window
the desert still vibrated with heat.

   "Hey. Where are you? Hey, Stimmitz, where'd you go?" He pivoted
slowly in the center of the room.

  "What's the matter?" Stimmitz came back into the room from the
apartment's miniscule balcony. He had been standing to one side where
Ralph couldn't see him. "What's wrong?" he said, sliding the window shut
behind himself.

  "Nothing." Ralph kneaded his forehead with one hand. Something
during the last few seconds had dissipated the gassy alcoholic haze
produced by the beer. Maybe his universe is catching up on me? "Just
don't—go around disappearing like that, OK?" From the floor he picked up
his uniform coat with the green and gold Opwatch patch on the sleeve.

                                     ***

   As he crossed the base, he was aware that to anybody watching from
one of the apartment buildings, it would look as if he were now
shimmering with heat waves, too. That's all right, thought Ralph. As long
as you're in phase. He trudged on towards the base's Rec hall.

   Through its door of dark glass he could see a few of the other watchers.
The sweat on his forehead and along his arms chilled as he pushed open
the door and stepped into another air-conditioned area.

   "What's up, Ralph?" Slouched in one of the sagging, upholstered chairs,
Kathy Foyle continued to gaze dispassionately at a section of newspaper. A
bit of nail came loose from the rest and she took her forefinger away from
her mouth. A lock of her dark hair straggled in front of one ear.

   "Nothing much. About the same." The exchange had become a ritual
with them, a section of meaningless time that had formed into a loop and
kept splicing itself in. There were other loops as well, Ralph knew, which
were capable of multiplying into whole days.

   The rest of the newspaper lay on the unused pool table in the middle of
the room. The table's felt had become gritty with the little bit of the
Californian desert that came into the room every time the door was
opened. Ralph's fingertips left little marks as he picked up the L.A. Times'
front page.

   XIMENTO FRONT PENETRATED Hill B-12 Taken, Says Pentagon.
Where was that? The name sounded Mexican to Ralph, though he hadn't
been aware that the fighting had spread that far north. Considering his
only mild curiosity, the text below the headline looked too dense to
penetrate. He laid down the paper, then headed along the hall's main
corridor to pick up his mail.

   He peered into the little box set into the wall with all the others. There
was nothing except an offer to join some record club—he got a lot of those;
he was on somebody's list somewhere—and his weekly copy of the
Revolutionary Workers' Party Agitant. A mimeographed note was stapled
to the low-grade paper. It stated that if he didn't send a couple more
dollars, they would regretfully have to let his one-month trial subscription
come to an end. The same note had been stapled to every issue he had
received for the past six months.

   He took a quick glance at the paper—SUPPORT SOCIALIST MARTYRS
OF XIMENTO!—then dropped it and the record-club offer into a waste
can and walked back to the main room.

  Kathy was gone but Fred Goodell was now sprawled in one of the
chairs, gazing out the glass door and scratching between the creases of his
sweat-stained Opwatch dress shirt. His bored-ferret face looked up at
Ralph. "You on tonight?"

  "Yeah," said Ralph. He lowered himself into one of the chairs. The tired
upholstery sighed even under his thin frame. "This is my Monday."

   Goodell nodded. "Two more nights for me." The watchers' shifts were
staggered through the week. "Then I'll be off." The conversation dissolved
into silence.

   I'd better go fix myself something to eat, thought Ralph vaguely. And
then go to sleep for a while. Rest up for another eight hours on the
dreamfield tonight. After half a year on this job, there were still times
when spending the night wandering around in other people's dreams
seemed like an unnatural thing to do.


                           CHAPTER 2
   "All right, men." Operations Chief Blenek paced back and forth in front
of them with his clipboard held behind his back. "Straight through,
tonight. No heroics. Just do everything by the manual, the Opwatch way.
All right?"

   "Oh, brother," muttered Chuck Fletchum, and slouched lower in his
folding metal chair next to Ralph. "They must be running those World
War Two bomber squadron flicks on TV again."

   Ralph said nothing. He could recall the week that one of the local
stations had scheduled a batch of 1940s' spy movies, and the pudgy
functionary had actually shown up at the pre-shift briefings wearing a
belted trenchcoat.

   Blenek had fallen silent and was now glaring at the two dozen men in
front of him, his small eyes set to impale whomever he had heard talking;
they fastened on Glogolt, who was a couple of chairs ahead of Ralph.
"What was that smart remark, Mr. Glogolt?"

  "Didn't say anything," mumbled the accused. He shifted his sacklike
bulk, a small mountain of flesh encased in a wrinkled jumpsuit.

   "Look at those shoes," snarled Blenek, pressing his case. "When was the
last time you took a rag to them? And pull up your zipper—you're a mess."

   Ralph leaned back and studied Glogolt—he was a mess. He always
looked as if he were somehow disintegrating inside his clothes, as if the
effort to retain human shape had become too much for him. It made one
tired just to look at him. Stimmitz is right, thought Ralph. What good is
there having somebody like that around!

   He looked over at Stimmitz sitting with his chair pushed against the
wall of the briefing room. The eyes in the impassive face focused
somewhere beyond the room. Ralph wondered what he was thinking. One
of Stimmitz's hands gripped the edge of his chair, his knuckles tensed
white.

  The voice of one of the other watchers broke through Ralph's attention.
"Come on, Blenek, get on with it."

   Blenek's eyes swept over the group again, then narrowed. They became
two thin gauges of the anger he obviously felt over the difference between
Operation Dreamwatch as it was and his fantasies of it. Clashing
universes, Ralph found himself thinking—a phrase picked up from
Stimmitz.

    "This just came over from the Thronsen Home," said Blenek sullenly.
"They've started a new pattern some of you guys might observe tonight. In
it, the kid is accused of shoplifting a candy bar, kid denies it, shopkeeper
hits kid and searches him, in doing so tears the new jacket the kid's
mother gave him, shopkeeper turns into kid's mother, and then it segues
into one of the 'angry parent' cycles. Got it?" Blenek had worked himself
back into his original gung-ho mood. "Let's keep an eye out for it and get
some reports in on it. Show the brass we're not just sleeping around here."
He placed his clipboard under his arm and rocked back on his heels. His
wide belly tautened his Op-watch uniform. "Okay, move out—time to get
on the line."

   As they crossed the short open space between the briefing room and the
line shack—the grounds of the base were lit blue by moonlight and the
desert's numerous stars—Ralph glanced over at the group of female
watchers sauntering out of their own briefing room. In a few moments
they would be on the dreamfield of the girls in the Thronsen Home.

    At a distance of fifty meters or so, Ralph could just recognize Kathy.
She waved briefly to him, holding a lit cigarette. It didn't appear to him as
if she had combed her hair since she had woken up last—one of her
regular shortcomings, Ralph conceded. He looked, but didn't see Helga
Warner in the group.

   He turned away and followed the other men into the line shack. The
building housing the PKD Laboratories' Field Insertion Device wasn't a
shack at all, but the largest cubic pile of cinderblocks and concrete for
miles around. "Shack," Ralph had decided, was probably just more
pseudo-military lingo.

   As he stepped into the building's doorway, a pair of distant screams
sounded from the sky. He looked back and up. Two pale luminous jet trails
were vanishing into the south. Another midnight terror-bomb run,
probably, down to the Brazilian front. Maybe Blenek should put in for a
job over at the Air Force base, thought Ralph. He pulled the door shut
behind himself.

   The towering banks of electronics were softly humming as he passed by
them. The air inside the building was sharp with ozone. Blenek scowled at
him and made a mark on his clipboard as Ralph stepped past him. The
last vacant strap was at the end of the thick cable dangling from the lofty
ceiling. He grabbed the leather loop and felt the cold metal contact point
settle against his palm. The permeating electronic hum grew louder.

   Blenek paced slowly alongside the line of watchers, who were hanging
onto the line's straps like bored subway passengers. He glanced from them
to his clipboard and back again, until he seemed satisfied that everyone
was there. Pivoting on his heel, he waved up at the control booth. "Okay,
Benny, take 'em on out."
   Nothing happened. The man in the little glass booth several meters
above their heads remained absorbed in a half-eaten sandwich and a
paperback book. He had his feet up on the controls that would activate the
line and send the watchers out onto the dreamfield.

  "Hey, Benny, come on!" shouted Blenek. "What're you doing up there?"

   "What does it look like?" said Goodell, who was standing closest to
Blenek. He took Blenek's pencil out of his hand and flung it up at the glass
booth. It ticked against the glass and fell back to the floor. Benny lowered
his feet and looked down at them.

   "Come on!" Blenek waved his clipboard, a stiff rectangular bat flapping
around his reddened face. "Throw the switch, dummy!"

   Benny's mouth moved, forming words they couldn't hear, but his hands
travelled across the control board anyway. The electronic hum whooped
up in pitch and held its new note. The fluorescent lights suspended from
the ceiling dimmed, reminding Ralph of the electrocution scenes from old
prison movies, then the entire building, Blenek, and Benny up in the
control booth, faded into grayness.

   The dreamfield faded in. The familiar sidewalks and storefronts of a
semi-rural small town solidified around the watchers holding onto the
line's straps. From a blue sky the fields eternal midafternoon sun shone
upon them, but they cast no shadows upon the street's surface.

   The humming noise from the shack's electronics back in the real world
faded and then ceased entirely. One by one, the watchers let go of the
leather straps. The line hung motionless for a moment, then snaked
upwards, gathering speed until it vanished in the limitless sky above them.

  One of the watchers yawned and stretched his arms. "If I stand around
here," he announced, "I'll cork off in about ten seconds. Let's go." He
motioned to his observation partner, and the two of them slowly started
away from the group.

   The rest divided into pairs and headed off in different directions along
the dreamfield's sidewalks. They all moved at the same unhurried pace.

  "Which way you want to go?" asked Stimmitz. It was the first time he
had spoken to Ralph since that afternoon.
   "Whichever way looks good to you." Ralph glanced at his watch; for
some reason, he and Stimmitz were the only watchers he had ever seen
with time-pieces. Eleven-fifteen, he noted, and sighed. Seven and
three-quarters hours until the line came dangling down out of the sky
again.

   They walked in silence past a small drugstore. Circular racks of
sunglasses and the aisles of cosmetics and other merchandise could be
seen through its window. The store, like the others on the block, was lit up
inside but vacant—the dream sequences tended to show up farther away
from wherever the watchers had been dropped by the line.

    Idly, Ralph pushed his fingers through the drugstore window. After an
initial resistance, his hand went into the glass as though it were a body of
water somehow made vertical. The nature of objects on the dreamfield
was described alternately as "cheesy insubstantiality" and "evanescent
jello." The mental orientation that kept the watchers on top of the
sidewalks instead of sinking slowly through them also gave a slight
surface-tension effect to everything in the dreamfield's illusion of a small
town. The glass actually felt like water rippling around Ralph's moving
hand.

   He turned his head and looked behind. The other watchers were all out
of sight. Beside him, Stimmitz slowly paced, silent and apparently lost in
thought.

   They reached the end of the block and crossed the street. On the other
side were the same stores as they had just passed, but reversed as if they
had walked through a mirror. The entire field was made up of infinite
repetitions and reflections of the same small area. If the two of them
continued walking down the street, the neon sign that spelled out
DRUGSTORE would become EROTSGURD and then DRUGSTORE
again… again and again, for as far as they went on the field.

   The sound of voices broke the silence. They had come upon the first
dream sequence of the night. "In there," said Stimmitz, pointing to the
restaurant in the middle of the block on the other side of the street. The
voices grew louder as he and Ralph headed towards them. One voice, a
child's, cracked with emotion.

  Peering through the restaurant's door, they watched the scene, already
well under way. "The old puppy-on-a-platter pattern," said Stimmitz.
   "Are they still doing this one?" Ralph shook his head in disgust. "I
thought they had already gone through all the kids in Thronsen with it."

  "Maybe the therapists have started reruns."

   The dream continued through its sequence. The platter with the boy's
dead dog upon it had already been brought to the table. The boy, a
pallid-faced teenager, had risen from his chair and, with tears coursing
down his face, was shouting at the waiter. As Ralph and Stimmitz
watched, the waiter's face melted into that of a middle-aged woman,
probably the boy's mother. More shouting, a long, agonized scream from
the boy, and he buried his face in his arms upon the table, sobbing beside
the dog's corpse. In a few seconds, the mother/waiter dissolved into
nothing along with the dog, leaving the crying boy alone in the empty
restaurant.

    "That's always been one of my least favorite ones," said Ralph as they
walked away from the restaurant. "There's something really tacky about
it."

   "Yeah, well, that's what I was talking about before. You know?"
Stimmitz gestured around them at the dreamfield. "Don't you start to
wonder if the therapists over at Thronsen really know what they're doing?
Or if they do know, do we?"

   "Aw, come on." Ralph kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk, the toe of his
shoe going right through it. "Don't start mystery-mongering again. Give
me a little more to go on this time, all right? If you know so much, come
on, show and tell time."

   Stimmitz glanced at him, then barely smiled. "Maybe what I know isn't
a mystery," he said. "Maybe I just know the same things as you and
everybody else, but I think about them differently."

   Ralph stopped in front of another of the field's drugstores and faced
Stimmitz. "You know you know more than I do. You sneaked into
Thronsen with Helga Warner."

  "Think about that." Stimmitz tilted his head to one side.

  "Think about what?" He was beginning to feel a little irritated.
  "Why'd I have to sneak into Thronsen."

   "Because…" Because there's something they don't want us to see. The
pieces fell together in Ralph's mind, perfectly formed, like a smooth black
stone. Because they're hiding something. He felt the weight of Stimmitz's
eyes upon himself. "I never thought about that."

  "Most people think nothing of everything." Stimmitz turned and walked
away.

   Ralph stood for a moment in thought, then started after him. "Maybe
they have a good reason for not wanting us in there."

  "Exactly," said Stimmitz without bothering to even look around.

  "Well, what about the dreams?" said Ralph as they crossed the street
and entered another repetition of the small town. "What's so mysterious
about them?"

   "Look. There aren't any dreams here. These sequences they put these
kids through every night aren't dreams; they're nightmares. That one we
just saw—" Stimmitz jerked his thumb behind them, "—the
dog-on-a-platter bit, the girlfriend-into-father-into-cop one, all of the
'angry parent' routines. Man, those are the worst kind of nightmares.
Those are epics of humiliation and frustration and fear."

  "Well—" started Ralph.

   "Shut up a minute. Now, when you were recruited for Operation
Dreamwatch, how did they explain it to you? Therapy program, right? A
hundred hard-core recidivist juvenile delinquents, already been through
every correctional program in the state, and they've got 'em all over there
at the Thronsen Home now. And the therapists in charge of the program
put the kids into a common, shared dream state every night and that
creates this dreamfield, right? The therapists control the setting, control
everything that happens to the kids when they're dreaming—all the
different sequences, which are designed to get to the kids' psychological
problems when their psychic defenses are lowest, catharsize their traumas
and everything. And over here at the base, the watchers—us—are
projected onto the field through the line shack, so we can observe and
report on the kids' reactions to the dream sequences. Isn't that how it was
explained to you?"
  Ralph nodded. "Pretty much."

   "Okay, do you still believe it, then?" Stimmitz's face darkened. "Do you
really think these dreams are helping these kids? Putting them through
the same kind of crap they've probably gone through all their lives while
they were awake, only worse, because here it's intensified, cut right down
to the symbols—this is therapy? The real-life counterparts to these dreams
messed them up before, what are these doing to them now?"

  "How should I know?" Ralph shrugged, wilting under Stimmitz's
outburst. "I don't know anything about psychology."

   "Psychology, fake-ology." Stimmitz thrust his hands into the pockets of
his jumpsuit and continued walking. "There's a point where psychology
has to meet with what you know about the world already. And if this is
therapy, then the people in charge have missed that point."

  "Hey, maybe it's not therapy—it's anti-therapy." Ralph laughed weakly.
"They're not changing delinquents into normal kids. They're changing
normals into delinquents."

  Stimmitz said nothing, leaving Ralph to his own thoughts for the next
couple of hours.

    "Look over there." Ralph pointed ahead of them along the sidewalk.
"It's ol' Slither."

   "Really?" Stimmitz snorted. "I thought maybe they'd finally gotten rid
of that thing."

  "Wanna go see what it's up to?"

   "Yeah, why not?" said Stimmitz, yawning. "That oughta kill a little
time."

   Ralph glanced at his watch. Two more hours until the end of the shift
when the line would come down out of the sky for all the watchers. He and
Stimmitz had gone through a couple of dozen of the field's endless
segments of small town, and observed half that many dream sequences.
Ralph used to jot them down in a little notebook, but all the patterns
become too familiar for that to be necessary any longer. There were rarely
any dreams to be seen in the last quarter of the shift. On most nights—it
took an effort to remember it was still dark in the real world, crawling
towards dawn—nothing broke the monotony of pacing the silent, empty
streets and waiting for the line.

  Except for the slithergadee, thought Ralph. He and Stimmitz hurried
toward the corner where they had seen its tail disappear. The psychologist
who thought up that thing must have some imagination.

    They rounded the end of the block and saw the slithergadee squatting
malevolently in the middle of the road. Its corroded-brass scales rattled as
its flanks bellowed in and put with its breathing.

   Repulsed, Ralph watched the creature. He remembered the poem, one
of the classic Shel Silverstein children's-rhyme parodies that one of the
watchers had come up with when the thing was first spotted. The
Slithergadee has crawled out of the sea/He may catch all the others, but
he won't catch me/No, you won't catch me, old Slithergadee/You may
catch all the others, but you wo—And it ended right there. The name had
stuck to the dreamfield's resident monstrosity.

   It saw them coming toward it and opened its mouth in a gaping hiss.
Its retractable fangs slid out of their sockets, double rows of glistening-wet
crescents. Of all the field's illusions, it was the only one that seemed to be
able to see the watchers. It was harmless, though, being as insubstantial
as everything else.

    "You know," said Stimmitz as they halted a few yards from the
slithergadee's brooding face, "if they really wanted Operation Dreamwatch
to be a therapy program, they'd take those kids over in Thronsen, give 'em
our jobs, and let 'em come out here to take a few swipes at this thing.
There's really an enormous satisfaction in kicking this godawful thing and
having your foot go right through it. It's as if it were the embodiment of all
the bogeymen that scared you when you were a child. And then you find
out that it's not even real; there never was really anything to be afraid of at
all."

    Ralph nodded. Whenever it was sighted, about once a week, the
slithergadee always afforded a few moments of pleasure to the watchers
who had come across it. Ralph stepped forward and brought his foot down
upon the thick tip of its tail lying in front of them. The thing hissed
through its saucer-wide nostrils and jerked its immaterial tail away.
    "Watch this." A boyish excitement had brightened Stimmitz's mood. Of
all the watchers he seemed to most enjoy fooling around with the
slithergadee. "I'm going to zip one right through its nose." He walked up
to its face, then arced his foot through a waist-high swinging kick. The
slithergadee clattered its scales in seeming frustration at not being able to
snatch the shoe going in and out of its face as though it were a cloud.

   "Hey," said Ralph. "With all your snooping around, you didn't happen
to find out what this thing is for, did you?"

   "No." Stimmitz stood back a few feet and gazed at its swollen bulk. "To
be honest, I didn't. I'm really beginning to think the therapists designed it
into the field for some reason, and then forgot they had it here. It never
does anything in any of the kids' dreams—just lurks around the fringes
every once in a while."

   Ralph yawned and scratched the side of his face. "Come on," he said.
"Let's leave the poor thing alone. Even if it is just an illusion."

    "One more time." Stimmitz pivoted on one foot and aimed another kick
at its head. The slithergadee opened its mouth, its teeth sliding forward
into place, and tore off Stimmitz's leg.

    "Good Lord!" Ralph fell backwards onto the sidewalk as the
slithergadee reared up in the air, its roar mingling with Stimmitz's
agonized cry. There was an enormous gust of wind that smelled like blood
and decayed meat, and the sky darkened. The slithergadee plunged back
down and sank its fangs into the now silent body of Stimmitz.

    Rolling onto his side, Ralph tried to pull his legs beneath him, but they
refused to function. A glance over his shoulder revealed the slithergadee
shredding the corpse pinned to the ground by its claws. His heart racing,
Ralph pushed himself up against the building at the edge of the sidewalk.
It resisted for a moment, then yielded and he fell through the wall.

   Suddenly, there were no sounds from out in the dream-field's street.
Ralph crouched on the building's floor and listened. The slithergadee's
roaring had stopped.

   He waited a few seconds, then got to his knees. The building he had
fallen into was one of the field's restaurants. He crawled over to its front
window and cautiously peered out.
  The slithergadee was gone. But a mangled pile of flesh and clothing
remained, slowly reddening the street.

   Ralph stepped through the window glass and slowly walked towards the
corpse. Every organ in his own body knotted in hysteria as he looked at
what was left of Stimmitz. A small moan of fear slid from Ralph's lips.

   "Hey," he said, barely making a sound from his constricted throat.
Then he shouted it. "Hey! Anybody! Come here! Quick!" His voice rang
through the empty streets, and he kept shouting until the other watchers
came.

  First was Goodell and his observation partner. "What's all the shouting
about?" said Goodell. He paled when he saw what Ralph was standing
near.

   The rest came from all different directions. They listened to Ralph's few
words of explanation. Without speaking, they drew away and huddled
together a few yards from the body, and waited for the shift to end. It
seemed like a long time until the line dropped out of the sky for them.


                           CHAPTER 3
   I am amazed at how fast my hands can move. Really amazed. Ralph
clung to that thought desperately, knowing that if his mind wandered, he
would see Stimmitz's crumpled body again. His hands continued their
work, rapidly extracting the clothing from his closet and filling the
suitcase laid open on the bed.

  The last of the civilian shirts was wadded up and thrown in with the
pants, underwear, and socks. The Opwatch base uniforms were left
hanging or scattered on the floor where he had dropped them; he had
been unbuttoning his shirt and pulling off the clothing as soon as he had
made it inside the door of his apartment.

   His hands brought the suitcase lid down and his thumbs pressed the
latches into place. Carrying the suitcase into the front room of the
apartment, he set it by the door, then turned around, scanning the
apartment for anything else he wanted to take with him. There wasn't
much. Objects had never seemed to accumulate around him here. Only
trash remained—brown paper grocery bags in the kitchen and empty beer
cans that had rolled too far under the bed to reach. After pausing for a few
seconds, he went into the bathroom and slipped his toothbrush into his
pants' pocket.

   Is that it? he thought as he strode back into the front room. Somewhere
he had a bus schedule, if he could find it. Greyhounds passed through
Norden, the little town within walking distance of the base. He bent down
to look through the old newspapers stacked beside the couch. When
someone knocked at the door, his hand clenched, crumpling a page of
outdated headlines.

   He stood up and stepped towards the door, then stopped as his hand
touched the knob. "Who it is?" he said.

  "It's me—Fred," came Goodell's voice.

  "What do you want?" Ralph still did not open the door.

  "What? Hey, are you okay?" Goodell rattled the knob.

  "Just tell me what you want."

  "Hey, man, are you all right?"

   He snatched the door open. "What do you mean, all right?" he shouted
into Goodell's startled face. "You stupid schmuck, you saw what happened
on the field. I'm supposed to be all right after that?"

   Goodell hastily backed up a few feet into the building's hallway. "That's
what I came to tell you." He spread his hands as though to fend off an
attack. "The base commander wants to see you. Stiles told the rest of us
something about what happened to Stimmitz."

   "Yeah? Like what?" Ralph's anger was simmering just below its peak.
He felt as if his veins were taut with pressure after months of being
half-empty.

  "Go get it from him," said Goodell. "He's the one who should tell you."
He turned and hurried down the hallway, glancing nervously over his
shoulder at Ralph.

  Stiles wants to see me, thought Ralph as he closed the door and turned
to face the silent room. What did he tell the others? His watch read
seven-thirty. He had walked out of the line shack as soon as they were all
back from the dream field, leaving the others to relate second-hand what
had happened to Stimmitz. His own words, he had decided, were going to
be saved for the police back in L.A., or the FBI or something.

   Outside his apartment window, the base and the desert beyond it were
starting to wash gold with the morning light. Ralph picked up his suitcase,
then dropped it and chewed the edge of his thumbnail. If I try to leave
now, he thought, they'll catch me. And then what? He took his hand away
from his mouth and wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants. Maybe
Stiles told the other watchers that I killed Stimmitz. The conjecture took
root in Ralph's mind and blossomed like an explosion. Maybe that's what
he told them, and he'll have me shot when I go to his office, and then tell
everybody that I tried to escape. And that it's okay because I was a
homicidal maniac anyway.

   He sat down on the couch and leaned forward, concentrating. It seemed
as if he had inherited Stimmitz's universe upon the other's death. Except,
thought Ralph grimly, that he knew something about what was going on
around here.

   Suddenly, another thought entered his head, like a ray of light. They
might not kill me if they didn't think they had to. If they thought I didn't
suspect anything. He stood up and paced the length of the small room. If
Commander Stiles's suspicions could be put off for a while, there might be
a chance of getting away later—even today, possibly. It was just a matter
of playing dumb for now.

   All right, thought Ralph, halting in the middle of the room. If they—
Stiles and whoever's above him somewhere—haven't already decided to
get rid of me, then that's my only chance. He resisted a powerful urge to
curl up into a ball in the corner of the room and close his eyes until they
came for him. After several deep breaths, he opened the apartment door
and started down the hallway.

                                     ***

  "Just close the door behind you, won't you, Metric?" Commander Stiles
waved vaguely with one hand, scattering ashes from his cigarette on his
desk. "Have a seat."
  Ralph sat down. A wad of saliva had formed in his mouth but he didn't
swallow, trying to conceal his nervousness.

   Behind the desk, the gray-haired base commander swivelled from side
to side in his imitation leather chair. "I see you're out of base uniform," he
remarked mildly.

   Hell, thought Ralph, forgot about that. The ball in his mouth grew
bigger, and he had to swallow before he could speak. "Uh… yeah. I guess I
am."

  "That's all right." The cigarette described a figure in the air. "I
understand how you feel." He exhaled a small cloud between them.
"Thinking about cutting out of here, weren't you?"

   "That's right." Ralph felt as though his mind were racing completely
free of all connections. "Actually I've been, uh, thinking about it for some
time now. Before today, I mean."

    "Nonsense." Stiles took a fresh cigarette from the box on his desk and
lit it from the stub of his old one. "You're scared because of what you saw
last night. This morning, I mean—about five a.m. or so, wasn't it?"

   Ralph silently studied the older man's heavily grained face. "Scared?"
he asked finally.

   "Come on. Don't diddle with me, Metric. I imagine what you saw on the
field was pretty upsetting. You must've thought something pretty big had
gone wrong someplace, for something like that to happen. With Stimmitz,
I mean, and the—what do you men call it?—slithergadee."

  He said nothing. The air in the room felt as though it were tensing and
becoming brittle around him: any word or motion might shatter it.

  "What if I told you," said Stiles, swivelling around to gaze out the
window behind him, "that what you saw didn't happen?"

  "Sir?" Ralph's eyes jerked to the back of the imitation-leather chair.

   Stiles swung back around to face him. "It didn't happen, Metric. It was
an illusion. That stupid jerk Stimmitz sneaked into the Thronsen Home
the other day. We know all about it. Those kids live in a very controlled
environment over there; it's part of the treatment, and the therapists are
very careful about what they're allowed to see. Because what they see
during the day is incorporated into their dreams at night. That's how the
sequences are programmed. Several of the kids saw Stimmitz when he was
snooping around. We didn't find out about it until just before all of you
watchers were starting your shift last night. We pulled Stimmitz off the
line just as it was being activated."

  "But Stimmitz was on the field last night—"

    Stiles gestured impatiently. "That was an illusion. What you saw was
the image of Stimmitz that got mixed in with the kids' dreams. You
expected him to be there on the field with you, and so your subconscious
filled in the details of the image's movements, talking and so on."

  "But he was there," said Ralph. "I saw the slithergadee attack him,
and—"

  "No. We pulled the real Stimmitz off the line and fired him for breaking
Opwatch regulations. He was over in Norden waiting for a bus out of here
when the image you saw of him got ripped up. The stimulus of the new
image—this is what the therapists over at Thronsen told me—triggered a
hostility-release sequence that's programmed around the slithergadee. It's
supposed to be used later on in the program."

   So this is what he told the others, thought Ralph. "Stimmitz isn't dead,
then? The real one, I mean."

  "No He deserved it though." Stiles tilted back in his chair and watched
him.

   Now what? Ralph avoided the other's eyes. If what Stiles had told him
was the truth, then there was nothing to worry about. But if it wasn't, if
something was still being hidden… He suddenly felt his universe become
vague and insubstantial, like the dreamfield itself. It had been so clear and
solid, if dangerous, only a few moments ago. Foggy knives, he thought, the
odd image creeping through his mind.

   "Not convinced, eh?" Stiles lifted his hand. "No, that's okay, I
understand, Metric. You were the one who saw it, you're the one who
should insist on proof." He reached down and lifted a large plastic bag
from behind the desk, then dumped its contents on top of the papers. "Go
ahead. Take a look."

  It was a wadded-up Opwatch jumpsuit, the kind worn by the watchers
during their shifts on the dreamfield.

  Ralph picked it up and looked inside the collar. His own initials, RDM,
were stamped inside.

   "It's yours," said Stiles. "It's the one you were wearing last night. We
took it out of the locker room after you had gone back to your apartment.
Now, if the slithergadee's attack was as vicious as you described it to the
other watchers, and if that had been the real Stimmitz on the field last
night, then surely some of his blood would have gotten on you. Right?
Well, go ahead, take a look. Not a spot on it."

   Carefully, Ralph inspected the jumpsuit. He could remember the blood
spraying toward him after the slithergadee's first lunge at Stimmitz. The
warm fluid from the severed leg had been like some nightmare fountain,
pulsing in time with Ralph's own heartbeat.

   There were no bloodstains on the jumpsuit. Ralph laid it down upon
the commander's desk.

   "That's the way it is," said Stiles. "It was too bad that Stimmitz had to
go and be so stupid, cause so much trouble for us and so much worry for
you. But you're a good man, Metric, and we don't want to lose you. That's
the bottom line of it all. Tell you what; you've been here long enough to
qualify for a week's vacation. Get your mind off what you saw on the field."
He gestured expansively with his cigarette.

   "Maybe," said Ralph. It felt as though a hollow cylinder had formed
inside him. Dimly, he wondered if this was the same way he had always
felt before. "Maybe I'll do that. I'll let you know."

   "Sure, sure. Anytime will do. Close the door after you, will you? Dust
gets on everything."

   The thought struck him as Ralph closed the door and stepped away
from the commander's office. They could have switched jumpsuits. They
could have taken one of my others from the laundry bin and showed me
that. They could have gotten rid of the one with the blood on it. It would
have been simple.
  "Do you really believe it?"

  "Well, sure, Ralph." Kathy brushed her unkempt hair from her
shoulders. "Don't you?"

   Goodell leaned forward in his Rec hall chair and wiped a line of beer
from his upper lip. "Come on," he said. "Do you have a better explanation
for what happened?"

   "What didn't happen," corrected Ralph vaguely. He looked around at
the twenty or so watchers, male and female, gathered in the Rec hall's
main room. Some unspoken need had made them seek each other's
company. Even Glogolt was there, slouched down in one of the chairs with
a beer can perched on his stomach. Some of them look a little vexed,
noted Ralph. The ripples from the stone that fell in their shallow waters
haven't quite gone away yet.

  "Well? Do you?" said Goodell.

   "No," said Ralph. His fingers slowly blurred a trickle of sweat on his
forehead. "They told us their story, and nobody can tell one any different,
so what Stiles and the others said must be the truth."

   "Ralph, don't be so creepy." Kathy looked annoyed at the trace of
sarcasm she had detected in his voice. "You're just imagining things."

   "Did anybody see Stimmitz leave?" Ralph felt his own desperation,
trying to connect the last amorphous bit of suspicion with something
solid. "How come he left all of his stuff back in his apartment?"

  "I'd want to cut out before anybody saw me, too," said Goodell, "if I'd
pulled anything so stupid. Sneaking into Thronsen… what a jerk."

   "You mean you're not curious? You don't wonder about what might be
going on over there?"

  "Why should I be?"

    Ralph looked from Goodell's face to those of the other watchers. They
all had the same expression around the eyes. He got up without speaking,
pushed past their outstretched legs and then out through the dark glass
door.
   Outside, his shoulders bore the weight of the noon sun. Through the
glare he could see the hills and desert beyond the base's grounds; the rocks
and sand dunes resembled the other watchers' eyes—flat, solid, objects
rather than human. Looking away, he walked on towards the apartment
building.

   Two men were busily working in Stimmitz's old second-floor
apartment. They were loading the books and other things into large
cartons. As Ralph looked in through the open doorway he saw the words
Zenith Van and Storage on the backs of their gray overalls.

   "Howdy," said one of the men, turning and spotting him in the
doorway. "Hey, do you know somebody around here named—what was
it—hey, who was that package for?"

   "Ralph Metric," said the other mover, lifting Stimmitz's tape deck from
the bookshelves.

  "That's me."

   "Here," said the first mover. "This guy left this behind for you." He
picked up a flat square object from the floor and handed it to Ralph.

  It was a boxed reel of tape. Bach cantatas, on a European import label.
He turned it over in his hands and saw the inscription in felt pen. Give to
Ralph Metric After I Leave. Below that was Stimmitz's signature.

   "Thanks," muttered Ralph, holding the box. Damn, he thought, I don't
even have a tape recorder to play this on. Stimmitz knew that. Maybe he
really was—or is—flipped out, or something. "Thanks." He walked slowly
down the hallway, then turned and walked back to the doorway of
Stimmitz's apartment. "Where's all this stuff being sent to?"

    "We're just storing it," said the mover. "Until the guy comes and picks
it up."

  "Oh." Ralph nodded and started down the hallway again.

    Inside the door of his own apartment, he opened the tape box. There
was nothing but the clear plastic spool wound about with the tape and a
little booklet with the words to the cantatas in three languages. He paged
quickly through the booklet—there were the tiny black letters and
odd-looking photos of the soloists. Some of the tape uncoiled from the reel
as he threw the entire package onto his sofa in a fit of frustration and
disgust.

    There was a tape recorder in the Rec hall, he knew, on which he could
listen to the tape. Later, he thought. Not now—I'm too tired. A depressing
premonition sapped at him. Somehow he felt sure there would be no
messages for him on the tape.

   Perhaps there would never be any messages for him. He pulled a chair
up to the window, sat down and gazed out over the base. The last of that
other universe, where things had seemed to be connecting up at last, was
draining from him like blood. Welcome back, he thought grimly. This is
just like the old Juvenile Hall all over again. The memory, an old wound,
came sliding back.

                                     ***

   Over a year ago he had been working the graveyard shift at the Juvenile
Hall in one of the counties below L.A. From eleven at night until seven in
the morning, the same hours as the shifts on the dreamfield, he had been
responsible for one of the "living units," as each group of rooms housing
twenty or so kids had been called. They were nearly always asleep when he
got there. Every half hour he was supposed to walk down the unit's long
hallway with a flashlight and peek through the little window set in each
room's locked door—to make sure none of the kids being detained there
had decided to kill himself with his bedsheet knotted around his neck, or
had managed to escape by somehow dicing himself through the tough
steel grating over the outside windows. None of the kids had tried to do
either while he had been working there.

    The rest of the time he was supposed to sit at a desk in the unit's day
room, just be available: a good job, he had been told when he applied for
it, for somebody going to college or with something of their own to do.
After a short walk every half hour for exercise, he could spend the rest of
the time studying or whatever. Ralph hadn't been in college then but he
had been working on a novel. He would spread his notebooks out upon the
desk top as soon as he had arrived.

  The book never got written. The same thing happened to him that he
had seen happening to everyone else who worked there at night, but no
one had ever seemed to talk about it. Like a nerve disease edging along the
spine and out into the arms and legs, a paralysis of the will set in. Every
night he would sit there, the hours crawling past, the blank pages in front
of him. But the things he had wanted to do had swollen into obstacles of
crushing size and weight.

   The world of the graveyard shift had become gradually stranger and
stranger. Every half hour he would make his room checks, going with his
flashlight from one small window to the next. The kids had slept on,
wrapped in whatever dreams were theirs alone.

   In the Juvenile Hall the kids had been mainly passively delinquent,
their offenses often something to do with being stoned too often and too
publicly. The violent ones, the ones with psyches corkscrewed into a hard,
sick knot were quickly sorted out and dispatched to special state facilities;
from these juveniles, the hardest would end up at Thronsen Home and
Operation Dreamwatch. The ones in the Hall had weightless lives, content
for the most part to be pushed along by the current of the adult world they
might someday inherit by default.

   Sometimes, as he had looked in on their slack faces, it had seemed as if
their mild dreams and nightmares had somehow seeped out from under
the doors of their rooms like an invisible gas, and poisoned all of the night
staff. Most of those who had taken the job in order to study wound up
flunking their classes and dropping out of college. Ralph would go home in
the morning, feeling as if something had been drained out of him.

   Then he received a form letter from the Operation Dreamwatch
recruiting office in L.A. He had wound up applying—drifted into it,
really—and had found himself here, in this desert that always seemed as
vacant as the space that had grown inside him.

                                     ***

   Ralph gazed out his apartment window at the Opwatch base. Now
what? The sun was setting—he had lost the last several hours somehow.
As though he were back at Juvenile Hall, fluid time had leaked away and
evaporated again. He rose and picked the tape up from the couch.

   As he entered the Rec hall, one of the watchers lounging in the chairs
signalled to him with a beer can. "Hey," called the watcher. "No shift
tonight. Blenek just told us we've got the night off."
  Ralph nodded and walked on. It wasn't unusual, the most frequent
explanation was that the field insertion device needed adjusting.

   In the Rec hall's small, scarcely-used library, he let himself into the
booth containing the tape recorder. After a moment studying the
directions fastened to the front of the machine, he snapped the tape into
place and threaded it through the rollers. He slipped on the headphones
and pressed the Play button.

  The tape was nearly two hours long. He listened to it all. There were no
messages on it, nothing had been added on top of the Bach cantatas.
When it was done he gently touched the empty reel to stop its spinning.
He sat in front of the machine for a long time. The silence spread around
him.


                           CHAPTER 4
   The clock beside his bed read eight a.m. when Ralph awoke. He shook
away the last vestiges of a dream about teeth sliding in a scaled mouth.
The room was already bright with the desert sun filtering through the
curtains. He sat up and stared at his knees beneath the sheet as though
what he was thinking was printed there.

   Helga, he said to himself. Of course, you ass. Why not go talk to Helga
Warner? She's the one who went into Thronsen with Stimmitz—she
should know something about what's going on. Ralph swung his legs over
the edge of the bed and reached for the clothes he had dropped on the
floor the night before.

  On the pathway to the other apartment building, he ran into Kathy.
"Hello, Ralph," she yawned, idly scratching below the blue and gold
Opwatch emblem on the sleeve of her blouse. "What's up?"

  "Huh?" He stopped and looked at her so intensely that she took a step
backwards. "What did you say?"

  She returned his stare. "What's the matter with you?"

   "Never mind. Nothing." He stepped past her and hurried on towards
the other building.
    Helga's apartment was on the third floor. He had never been inside—of
all the watchers, she had always been the least sociable—but he
remembered seeing her unlock her door once while he had been talking to
Kathy in the hallway. Upon finding the right door he knocked, waited,
then knocked again.

  "Who's there?" Helga's voice came through the still closed door.

  "It's Ralph. Ralph Metric. I want to talk to you."

   A few seconds of silence. "What about?" Her voice slowed with a
strange caution.

  "Well—can I come in? It's important."

  There was no answer. "It's about Stimmitz," he said.

   The door opened a few inches, revealing a section of Helga's wide face.
She looked Ralph over, then glanced past him into the hallway. Without
speaking, she pulled the door open and stood back.

   As Ralph stepped past her into the apartment he felt her watching him.
He turned and met her eyes with his own, then looked quickly away. Wow,
he thought, she looks like she's about to bite my head off. He stared out
her window at the harsh desertscape.

  "So?" said Helga. "What did you want to say?"

   He looked around at her. She studied him with the same hostile
bearing, her arms folded in front of her short, square torso. "Actually,"
said Ralph, "I really wanted to ask you some things—"

  "Like what?" she snapped.

  "Well, about what you and Stimmitz saw when you sneaked into the
Thronsen Home, and—"

  "You didn't make that part of your deal, then. Too bad."

  "Huh?" Ralph looked at her in puzzlement. "Deal?"

   Her expression didn't change. "If you're so curious about what's going
on over there you should have asked for some information along with
whatever they did pay you."

  "Pay me? What are you talking about?"

   One corner of her mouth curled in disgust. "Come on. I told Stimmitz I
didn't think he should tell you anything. That you couldn't be trusted. But
he went ahead. His last mistake."

   "What?" Ralph spun around and faced her. "You think I finked on
Stimmitz or something?"

   "You were the only one he told about going into Thronsen. You were the
only one who knew."

  "Hey, that doesn't mean I said anything to anybody about it. Why
would I want to get him in trouble?"

  She said nothing, only continued her hard, level gaze at him.

   Ralph felt a surge of anger, like a heat in his chest. "How much do you
think they paid me?" he said bitterly.

  "You're so stupid you probably did it for nothing."

   "Forget it." He walked to the door and put his hand on the knob. "I
didn't set Stimmitz up and nobody's letting me in on anything."

  "Get out," said Helga flatly.

   He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. He turned to say
something more but the door closed in his face. From inside he could hear
the small metal noises of the lock clicking into place.

                                     ***

   Ralph cradled the back of his head in his hands and gazed up at the
featureless white ceiling over his bed. I don't know what's going on
around here.

   Stimmitz was gone, of that much he was sure. There had been no blood
on the jumpsuit, but that didn't prove anything, one way or the other. So
what else is there? he thought, staring at the ceiling. Helga was acting
crazy—but then he had always felt she was kind of strange. Perhaps her
own universe had finally snapped shut around her like a trap.

    Give up, Ralph told himself disgustedly. Accept what Stiles told you.
Go drink a beer with the others. He took his hands from behind his head
and saw that they had clenched into fists, the nails digging into the flesh
of his palms. Convulsively, he got up from the bed and stalked into the
living room.

   The morning sun came through the window in a shaft, bleaching out
the color of everything in the apartment. Ralph looked from the couch to
the walls, as though some message could have been written there, then
across the door and back to the couch. Stupid-looking couch, he thought,
feeling something going sour in his stomach as he turned and gazed out
the window.

   If only there was something solid, he thought, that I had brought back
with me from the dreamfield. So that I'd know for sure. Something like—
shoes! He swivelled around toward his bedroom door. The shoes he had
been wearing that shift were under his bed—he hadn't left them in the
locker room with his jumpsuit.

    Crouching on his knees beside the bed, he pulled out the shoes. He
hurriedly examined them, turning each one around and studying it from
all sides. After a couple of minutes he sat down heavily on the bed. Still
nowhere, he thought. There had been no spots of blood anywhere on the
shoes. His disappointment had a sense of finality.

    Come on, he thought. Why can't you accept it? Nothing happened.
Stimmitz is probably in L.A., looking in the want ads for another job. He
tilted one of the shoes and poured a small hill of sand into his palm. For
several seconds he stared at the tiny bit of desert before the realization hit
him.

  That's impossible, he thought. The base is all paved or landscaped.
There's no sand between here and the line shack. There's no way I could
have gotten any in my shoes—but it's here somehow.

   He reached for the other shoe and tilted it over his palm. There was
even more sand in that one, making a gritty fistful in all. Carefully, he
stood up and carried it into the other room.

  Standing at the window, he looked from the sand to the desert beyond
the base and back again. I don't get it, he thought, baffled. The sand was
something tangible, disturbing in its inexplicable way, but the connection
between it and everything else that disturbed him seemed tenuous.

   Maybe it's a sign. He studied the multi-faceted grains. Go to the
source, or something like that. He went over by the couch and tore a sheet
of newspaper free from the stack beside it. In the center of the paper he
placed the sand and then folded it into a makeshift envelope. While
stuffing it in his back pocket, he headed for the door. Then again, he
thought, it might be just sand.

   When he reached the top of one of the low hills surrounding the base,
Ralph turned and looked back at it, shading his eyes from the sun with his
hand. From where he was, standing between two large clumps of the
desert's dry, prickly brush, he could see all of the base's buildings, the
paths linking them, and the fence circling the space.

   Turning ninety degrees, his feet crunching against the hill's pebbles and
sand, he could see part of the high security fence that surrounded the
Thronsen Home. The complex itself was out of sight beyond the chain-link
mesh, which was topped with barbed wire and laced with cables for the
electronic alarm devices. Somewhere inside there were the kids whose
nightly dreams had been merged and formed into the field. if, thought
Ralph, that's really what's in there. He headed down the side of the hill
away from the base.

   A flat gully, deep enough to be still shaded from the sun, lay at the foot
of the hill. Ralph looked in either direction along its path, then started
walking toward the east. He wondered if he would recognize what he was
looking for when he came across it. From atop a small rock, a dust-colored
lizard squirted its tongue at him, then vanished.

   This is ridiculous, thought Ralph after walking for a few minutes along
the gully. There's nothing out here but dirt and rocks and—He froze.
From somewhere in the desert's total silence he had heard a tiny, metallic
click. After a few seconds of intent listening, he heard it again. The noise,
so slight it would have been undetectable anywhere else but in a desert,
came from somewhere above the gully.

  As carefully and silently as he could, he mounted the gully's sloping
wall. Lying flat among the stones near the top, he peeked over the edge.
   Several meters away a woman appeared to be photographing
something on the ground in front of her. Though her back was turned to
him, Ralph knew that he had never seen her before. She was dressed in
jeans and a faded blue shirt, with her hair pulled back into a golden curve
along her neck. The camera she held in her hands was some battered but
functional-looking antique, the size of a small ham—it was no wonder that
the ancient mechanism of its shutter made so much noise.

   Her body blocked the view of whatever she was photographing. She
moved a few steps and clicked off another shot from a different angle.
Ralph pushed himself a little higher above the gully's edge, trying to see
what was on the ground before her. His foot brushed a few small rocks and
sent them clattering down the slope.

   The woman quickly lowered the camera from her eye and half-turned
her head at the noise. Ralph caught a glimpse of her precise-featured
profile against the sky before he had slipped out of sight below the rim of
the gully.

   He waited several seconds, then cautiously raised his head. The girl
with the camera was gone. He scrambled up and went to where she had
been standing. A quick glance over the barren spot of desert showed
nothing but rocks, scruffy brown brush and sand.

   What was she taking pictures of? he wondered. Maybe I should have
just gone up and asked her. That was the trouble with
paranoia—complications multiplied until their source became perfectly
insulated from the world. But then, he thought, she did take off when she
heard me. How come?

  The sun was now almost directly overhead. Ralph, a little dazed with
heat, wiped the sweat from his neck and walked away from the spot.
Whatever he was looking for didn't seem to be here. He wondered if he
would ever see the girl again.

   Several minutes later he came to the Thronsen Home security fence.
Well over ten feet tall, its intertwined wire diamonds shone in the sunlight
like a radiant net stretching across the desert. The black cables of the
alarm system snaked their way through the mesh.

   Ralph walked slowly along the fence, until he could at last see a corner
of one of the Thronsen Home buildings. Avoiding the thin, black cables, he
stopped and examined the fence. The rigid metal wire was nearly as thick
in diameter as his thumb. It would have taken some doing to have cut
through very many of the links, in addition to not setting off the alarms.
So how did Stimmitz and Helga do it? thought Ralph.

  As he puzzled over the newest additions to the questions circling in his
head, he continued walking beside the fence. A few meters farther on the
questions grew even more numerous.

   A small, neat square was missing from near the bottom of the fence.
The hole was just large enough for a person to crawl through. When Ralph
bent down to examine it, he saw that the ends of the severed links were
smooth, as though they had been melted through by some kind of torch.
Attached to each segment of the alarm cables were small alligator clips
with wires leading to a small metal box lying on the ground—a bypass
device, he assumed.

   He stood up and backed a few steps away from the fence. The whole
set-up was more sophisticated than he could have anticipated. Maybe, he
thought, there was more to Stimmitz. than he let on.

   Nervously, he glanced around the area. No one was visible on either
side of the fence. The coast is clear, he found himself thinking. He stepped
up to the fence and touched the cut wires. As he hesitated, his eyes
scanned the distant Thronsen House complex.

   If he sneaked in, found nothing sinister, didn't get caught-—then he'd
be able to forget all this stuff and go back to his old life, for what it was
worth. If he got caught, then he'd be canned. But that was preferable to
straddling the two universes until he split up the middle.

   Yeah, he told himself, but what if there is something going on in there
and I do get caught? Then whatever happened to Stimmitz will happen
to me, too. And it won't be just getting fired, either. He shook his head,
dislodging a few lines of sweat down into his collar, and started to turn
away from the fence.

   But what if I don't find out what they're doing in there? And it's
something—dangerous? The thought halted him for a few seconds. Then
he went back to the fence and knelt down in front of the hole. I don't see
what good this is going to do anyway, he thought grudgingly as he
crawled through.
   Once on the other side, he crouched and ran, veering from one clump of
dry brush to another. He suddenly felt ridiculous, as though he were
fumbling through an antique grade B combat picture. If only Blenek could
see me now.

   He covered the last few meters to the nearest building in a burst of
speed. Panting, he pressed his back to the gray concrete wall and listened.
He hadn't seen or heard anyone yet. Cautiously, he sidled along the wall.
He came to the corner of the building, hesitated, then peeked around. A
metal door was propped open with a folding chair. A large electric fan had
been placed in the opening and was whirring softly to itself.

   In a few more seconds he was alongside the open doorway. He peered
into the dark interior, then stepped around the electric fan and inside the
building.

   The air smelled of ozone, just as the line shack did back at the base. To
one side of the door was an unoccupied desk. Its lamp cast a small circle of
light on the floor of the dark, cavernous space.

   Ralph froze—he had heard someone breathing. The sound changed into
a gurgling snore, and he relaxed. As silently as possible, he crossed over to
the desk and looked around it. On the other side a man was sleeping on a
low cot, his head resting on his arm. The same laxness in security from the
unmended hole in the fence showed here as well. Maybe, thought Ralph,
some of them weren't really expecting anyone ever to try to get in here.
It must have been Stimmitz's bad luck to have been seen by someone.

   Still cautious, Ralph walked farther into the building. As the ozone
smell grew stronger, a luminous blue rectangle seemed to be floating in
the distance in front of him: a small window set into a door. He looked
through the glass and noted a corridor lined with banks and panels of
electronic equipment, illuminated by fluorescent lights overhead.

   The door yielded to his touch and he stepped into a long corridor, lined
with equipment panels. There was the same manufacturer's
insignia—PKD Laboratories—as on the electronics boards in the base's
line shack, but this assemblage was much bigger. The corridor went on for
some distance, the banks of equipment towering over Ralph's head as he
walked past them.

  Another door opened into a dark L-shaped passageway. He stepped
into it, then heard footsteps approaching from the other direction.
Pressing himself into the corner of the L, he saw the corridor's other door
open, momentarily framing a man carrying a clipboard. In the darkness of
the passageway the man didn't see Ralph, but let the door close behind
him and walked past, leaving by the other door. Ralph let out his breath.

   The passageway's other door opened onto a much larger space. A few
rows of dim fluorescent lights dangling on cables from the ceiling
produced a semi-twilight in the space. Ralph sensed that he was alone
here, too, until he heard the sound.

   Breathing. Slow, shallow breathing. A muffled sighing, like wind in the
distance.

   He looked around the space, his vision growing sharper in the dim
light. The breathing came from all sides, from some kind of open bins that
were stacked in tiers against the walls. He walked over to the nearest
group and looked inside a bin that came as high as his chest.

   It held a sleeping teenage boy. A plastic tube had been inserted through
the boy's nose and taped to his face. Another piece of surgical tape ran
across his forehead with a series of numbers scrawled in black ink. At
other points on the boy's body different tubes and wires were attached.
One black cable ran into a metal plate that seemed to be sutured to the
side of his head.

   The boy didn't awaken as Ralph looked at him. The breathing was so
slow and shallow as to barely raise the boy's bare chest.

   Ralph backed away, the skin on his shoulders and neck stiffening. There
was a bin below the one in which he had looked, and two above. His eyes
circled the room, counting the tiers. It came to an even hundred bins, each
with its tube and cables running in and fastened onto its occupant. A
hundred children suspended in something deeper than sleep, suspended
above death by the plastic tubes that nourished them.

   He felt something sink and go cold within him. So this is what
Stimmitz found, he thought. There's something wrong, they lied to us,
they're doing something here—

  He clenched his fists to keep his hands from trembling. Get out, he told
himself, I've got to get out of here. They'll kill me if they find out I've seen
this.

   Fear cramped inside him as he spun around, looking for the door. He
spotted it at last and headed for it. His breath swelled in his constricted
throat when he pushed the door open and saw another dimly lit space,
outlined by the same tiers with tubes and wires dipping into the bins.

   For a dismaying span of seconds it seemed as if he were caught in a line
of mirror images, like the dream field's repeating sections of a small town.
But here it would be an infinity of dark rooms, stale air thickening with
the slow breathing of the sleeping children…

   Convulsively, Ralph spun away from the door. He saw now that he had
lost his bearings in the dim light—the door by which he had come in was
on the other side of the room. He hurriedly crossed the space towards the
door and collided with a large object set in the middle of the floor.

   It was a metal filing cabinet. Gasping to catch his breath, Ralph pushed
himself away from its side. The top drawer rattled out as he took his hand
away. What he could see of the cabinet's contents produced a chill of
recognition.

   The stiff manila folders filling the drawer were delinquent children's
personal histories. He had seen hundreds of them when he had been
working at the Juvenile Hall to the south of L.A. The folders were soiled
and battered-looking from too many hands, thick with each child's
accumulated court papers, therapist and probation officer comments,
booking slips, and other records—troubled lives compressed into dry ink
and paper.

   The personal history folders travelled with each child to every
institution to which he was sent. Now the folders were here, stored close to
the unconscious youths. On impulse, Ralph pulled out two of the folders
from the drawer and stuck them under his arm. He crossed to the right
door and hurried out of the room's semi-darkness.

   The man who had passed him in the passageway was nowhere to be
seen, and the one on the cot behind the desk was still asleep as Ralph
cautiously went by him. In a few seconds he was out of the building,
around the corner and running with the two folders clamped to his chest
towards the nearest clump of brush in the open desert.
   Sliding the folders ahead of him on the sand, Ralph crawled through
the opening in the fence. He stood up on the other side and brushed the
grit from his pants. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the edge of one of
the

   Thronsen Home buildings wavering in the noon heat, the unsuspected
pools of darkness inside them hidden from sight again. He picked up the
folders from the ground and headed back to the base.

   When he came to the spot above the gully where the woman with the
camera had been, he halted. The light had changed its angle and now he
could see distinctly what she had been photographing. As if something
had been butchered on the spot and the earth had soaked up the blood,
the ground itself was discolored with an irregular, reddish-brown stain.

   Ralph paced slowly around the dried mark. Something in its outlines,
or its color, pushed back the memory of the Thronsen Home's dark
interior for a moment.

   A thought crept into his head. He looked away from the stain and
towards the base. The concrete cube of the line shack was visible in the
distance. With careful precision he tried to recall the different directions
he and Stimmitz had taken during the last shift on the field. The
adrenaline in his system had sharpened his memory. The line, he thought,
runs east and west inside the building. When we got to the field we
turned… right, I think… He closed his eyes and pictured the section of
small town. It was close to being firmer in his mind than the real world.

   We turned right. In his mind Ralph saw the two of them moving slowly
through the dreamfield sections, stopping occasionaly to watch a sequence
or to rest, then finally turning the corner to follow the slithergadee—

   He opened his eyes and laid the line he had constructed in his head
down on the ground between himself and the distant line shack, and
suddenly felt cold beneath the desert's noon sun. If his calculations were
right, then it was the same distance from where they had let go of the line
to where the slithergadee had attacked Stimmitz, as it was from the line
shack to this blood-colored spot.

   He looked from the gray building, small in the distance, to the
brownish red mark on the ground. His thoughts seemed to have frozen in
his head. There was the stain, the building, and all the desert in between,
but the connection was still elusive. The more Stimmitz's universe
coalesced around Ralph again, the darker things got. He squeezed the
manila folders in his hands and walked quickly, then broke into a run
away from the spot.


                            CHAPTER 5
   The six o'clock news was on the television in Goodell's apartment.
Groups of blurred soldiers were directing great block-long gushes of flame
into a blackening jungle. The jungle sagged and crackled. Unseen jets
could be heard wailing mournfully somewhere. Ralph put his index finger
under a beer can's tab and lifted.

   A newsman's rouged face came on, all the way from some studio in
L.A., but Ralph didn't hear what he was saying. Little stars lit up on a pink
and green map of South America behind the newsman.

  Ralph didn't hear the other watchers slouching in the apartment's
chairs either. He sipped at the first cold, sharp edge of the beer, and let his
mind pace slowly among his thoughts.

   The two folders he had stolen from the Thronsen Home were hidden
beneath the cushions of the couch in his own apartment. He had glanced
quickly through them but had found nothing to throw any light on what
he had witnessed on the other side of the fence.

   He imagined the spot out on the desert. Its outlines reformed,
throbbing, inside his head, fading into the memory of the sand in the
shoes, then into the woman he had seen with the camera. Was the Bach
tape Stimmitz had left for him part of the mystery also? He sipped again
at the beer. Who knows, he thought.

    After all—a group of sullen-looking South American Indians with
machine guns were trooping across the television screen—it could still be
all right. So what if the kids in the Thronsen Home are wired asleep?
Ralph asked himself. Maybe that's just part of the therapy that they
don't tell anyone about. For appearance' sake. Another pull, and the beer
can was half-empty.

   There were explanations for everything. All he had to do was to accept
them. Or if necessary, invent them. The real world felt like a tide,
pressuring him to accept what everyone else in the world believed to be
true. Except weirdos like Stimmitz and Helga, he thought.

   "Hey," he said, turning in his chair to see the others. They had all come
to Goodell's apartment because the Rec hall was getting its monthly
floor-polishing by an outside squad of janitors. "Anybody seen Helga
recently?" For some reason he felt like trying to talk to her again.

  "Didn't you hear?" Kathy yawned and scratched. "She got canned."

   Ralph lowered the beer can from his lips and looked at her. "What for?"
he said finally.

   Goodell looked disgusted. "Same thing that idiot Stimmitz got it for,"
he said. "They found out that she had sneaked into Thronsen with him." A
couple of the other watchers nodded, a silent chorus.

  "Did anybody… see her go?" Ralph squeezed the cold cylinder in his
hands.

  "Naw," said Goodell. "She took off without saying anything to anybody.
Wouldn't you if you got caught doing something that stupid?"

   "She must've really been in a hurry to get packed and out of here," said
Kathy, and giggled. "I peeked in her apartment before Blenek came and
locked it up, and it was all torn-up looking."

  "Like somebody had been fighting there?" asked Ralph dully.

  "Yeah, like that." She giggled again.

   Ralph stared at her while he sipped the flat remnants left in the can.
Maybe Helga was in a hurry, he thought. It's more likely than all that
other stuff. He noticed that the top button of Kathy's Opwatch blouse was
missing, revealing a small triangle of skin below her throat. It was pale
white, like the rest of her slender body. The skin of the girl with the
camera had been golden. But if that wasn't in another universe, it was far
enough away in this one to be not worth thinking about.

  He turned and looked past the television and out the window. The
sunset was melting the desert. Maybe, he thought, she was some kind of
nature buff, taking pictures of the spot where some desert animal killed
and ate another one. Maybe that's the explanation. He drained the can,
stood up, and went past the others into the apartment's kitchen.

   There was a small mountain of empty cans on one of the counters—he
added his own to it. Sometimes, he thought, it drops inside you without
even making a splash. He opened the refrigerator for another.

   Inside were four sixpacks of two different brands; one whole shelf was
stacked with them. It looked like every other refrigerator he had ever seen
on the base, including his own. He pulled one can apart from the rest and
closed the door.

   As he opened the can, it suddenly struck him as funny that, considering
how lazy all the watchers were, they had spent so much energy carrying all
that beer all the way from the little store in Norden where they bought
their groceries. A question of values, he decided. He brought the can to his
lips, then took it away, and stared at it.

   He had never seen any of them bring any beer back from the town. The
realization hit him like a wave. Right now, there were sixpacks of beer in
the refrigerator of his own apartment that he hadn't put there. There were
always fresh sixpacks, yet he never bought any. And neither, as far as he
knew, did any of the others.

    Damn, thought Ralph. He opened Goodell's refrigerator, looked inside,
closed it again. The beer was still there, mute and solid, covered with
moisture not much colder than that now springing out on Ralph's skin.
This has been going on all the time, he thought, and nobody's ever
noticed. None so blind, right? As those who will not see—until it tears out
their throats. He felt ill—his universe was crumbling for good, dissolving
at last to reveal the one, the true one, underneath.

   That bloodstain, he thought. There's no animal in this part of the
desert big enough to have made that. And the base commander's
explanation of what happened with Stimmitz and the slithergadee—
that's crap, too. If the kids are all unconscious, how could they see
Stimmitz and incorporate him into their dreams! It was clear to him that
Stimmitz had been right all along and had died because of it. There was
something wrong about Operation Dream-watch—something that killed to
hide itself.

  And the beer. His hand trembled as he looked at the can he held. Who
knows what they put in it. Or what it's doing to us. He stepped to the
sink and started to pour it out.

   "Hey," said Goodell from the doorway. "What're you doing?" He looked
from the last golden drops falling into the sink to Ralph's face. "Are you
feeling okay? You look terrible."

  Ralph set the can down on the counter. "I'm fine," he said. "Don't worry
about me."

   "You'd better go back to your place and lie down." Goodell put his hand
on Ralph's shoulder. "So you'll be ready to go out on the field tonight."

   "The field?" echoed Ralph. He stared at Goodell. Some part inside
himself clenched with the realization of what might be waiting for him
there.

                                       ***

  Commander Stiles was just leaving his office when Ralph caught him.
"Hello," said the older man as he locked the door with his key. "What's the
hurry?"

  Ralph gasped, trying to catch his breath. He had run all the way from
Goodell's apartment. "I just wanted to see," he managed to speak, "if I
could go ahead and take that week off."

   "Sure," said Stiles. "I don't see why not. Be good for you. I'll have the
forms ready tomorrow so you can take off right after your shift if you
want."

   "Uhh… would there be any way I could leave tonight?"

   The base commander frowned, his leathery skin bunching around his
lower lip. "No, I don't think so. Not according to the Opwatch manual, you
know." His eyes sharpened on Ralph. "Was there some particular reason
you wanted to leave so soon?"

  Careful, Ralph told himself. Don't let him suspect what you know.
"No," he shrugged. "Just a spur of the moment decision, that's all."

   "Come by in the morning, then." Stiles pocketed his key and started
down the hallway. "No need to be impatient."

   Ralph watched the broad uniformed back receding from him, then
slowly followed after it toward the exit.

                                      ***

   Nothing happened on the dreamfield that night, except for the usual
sequences to be observed. As the line came snaking down out of the field's
blue sky, Ralph's observation partner remarked on how nervous he had
seemed all through the shift. Ralph only nodded, watching the descending
line. It looked wonderful, a linear angel.

  By nine a.m., he was standing on the one small section of sidewalk in
Norden with a single canvas bag in his hand, even though he knew the
Greyhound to L.A. didn't come through until eleven-thirty.



                       PART TWO
                         L.A.
                            CHAPTER 6
    It felt good to be back in L.A. The farther away from the base the
Greyhound had travelled, the better Ralph had begun to feel. He knew that
whoever was behind Operation Dreamwatch—Stimmitz's remarks about
the mysterious Senator Muehlenteldt echoed in his head—was certainly
powerful enough to get at him just as easily as in the desert. But there was
still the sensation, the release of a knotted gut, of having somehow escaped
a trap. At least L.A. was something of a home base, familiar ground that
didn't tremble in the heat, but lay comfortably swaddled in its gray air.

   He walked out of the bus terminal and headed for the row of taxis at
the curb. Tucking his canvas bag under his arm. he opened the first one's
door and slid into the front seat beside the driver. "That all you got?" said
the driver, glancing at the bag.

   "Yeah, I'll hold it." Through the canvas Ralph could feel the stiff manila
folders he had stolen from the Thronsen Home. He gave the driver his
parents' address, and they pulled out into the downtown traffic.

    "What happened there?" asked Ralph. One of the towering office
buildings had what looked to be a giant hole chewed out of one corner,
with warped girders protruding into the air. He twisted around to stare at
it as they went past. Trucks and bulldozers were clearing away a small
mountain of rubble that blocked one of the streets at the foot of the
building.

   "One of those damn Ximento crazies," said the driver, scowling. "Wired
himself up like a bomb and set himself off in the men's room on the
thirtieth floor."

   "Really?" Ralph felt a familiar unease at not knowing what everyone
else seemed to know. He'd once considered subscribing to Time. "What
for?"

  "Who knows? Maybe the guy had something against pay toilets. Hah."

  The uncomfortable feeling went away as it always did when he realized
nobody else seemed to know anything either. Anyway, he thought, I know
more than they do. Just enough to be scared.

    Several minutes later, he was standing on the sidewalk in front of his
parents' house. The taxi's engine faded away, the noise swallowed by the
residential street's relative peace. The neighborhood had deteriorated a
little since he was a kid—a couple of the houses were abandoned, with
broken windows and spray-painted graffiti—but, in general, had resisted
the complete decay that radiated from other parts of the city. He lifted his
canvas bag and headed up the little path that bisected the front lawn.

    The front door was unlocked. Ralph stuck his head into the house and
listened for a moment. He could detect the faint, barely audible hum of a
television set in one of the rooms. Closing the door softly behind himself,
he peeked in the living room—empty, except for furniture—then went
down the hallway and looked in the den. His parents were there, both
silently watching the television. "Hello," called Ralph from the doorway of
the room.

   Mrs. Metric turned her head toward him. The garish colors from the
pre-embargo Japanese portable glinted from the oval lenses of her glasses.
"Ralph," she said, showing no surprise or any other emotion. "What are
you doing here?"

  "I'm on vacation." He crossed in front of them and sat down in an
armchair at right angles to both them and the television.

  "That's nice." She and Ralph's father continued to watch the screen.
Some type of game show was on.

  "Yeah." Ralph shifted in the overstuffed chair, feeling somehow
uncomfortable. "I just thought I'd spend some time looking up some
people."

  "Oh?" She didn't look at him. "Who?"

  "Uh, just people I… used to know."

  Several seconds passed, filled with the faint hysterical squealings from
some woman on the television.

  "Would it be all right," said Ralph, "if I borrowed one of the cars? The
Ford?"

  "Oh, sure." His mother waved vaguely at the doorway. "The keys are
hanging on the bulletin board in the kitchen."

  "Thanks."

   "There's still some of your clothes in your old room." She seemed to be
talking to the television. "Doesn't look like you brought very much with
you." Somehow she had noticed his small canvas bag.

   "Okay." The sound from the television grew even shriller. Ralph pushed
against the arms of the chair, feeling the uneasiness growing in his limbs.
"Uh, anything new?" he said, almost desperately. "Hear from Linda
recently?" That was his sister.

   "She's fine. George got stationed at El Toro, so he sees her and the baby
every weekend. He's radio-controlling a Soldier Joe right now."

  "That's the big three-ton model," said Ralph's father. His voice rumbled
up from some depth in his chest. "With the plasma howitzer."

  "He says he's seen quite a lot of Brazil on his view screen." Mrs. Metric
nodded for emphasis. "Even piranha fish in the Amazon River."

  "How about that." Ralph stood up. "Well, I'm going to be on my way.
Maybe I'll stop back by tonight."

  "That's fine. We'll be right here. We're not going to go anywhere."

   He crossed the room, picked up his bag from where he had left it in the
doorway, then looked back at his parents. The source of the uneasiness he
felt became apparent to him. The expression on their faces as they sat
absorbed in the television—absence of expression, really, on the border of
the inanimate—was the same as he had always seen on the watchers back
at the base. And sometimes in his own mirror. A shudder moved across
his shoulders and arms. He turned away and headed down the hallway.

    In his old bedroom he found a fresh shirt hanging in the closet and,
tucked away on a shelf, a shallow rectangular box he had forgotten all
about. He knelt beside the open closet and lifted the cardboard lid,
revealing a sheaf of paper. On the topmost sheet was his own name, neatly
typed beneath the manuscript's title. He lifted out the thin bundle and
flicked through the pages of crisp black typing and the slightly blurred
carbon copies.

   It was supposed to have been a science fiction novel. He had already
started on it and was about a quarter of the way through when he had
taken the night job at the Juvenile Hall south of L.A. Then his life had
bogged down and he had wound up with Operation Dreamwatch out in
the desert.

   He put the lid back on the box. Science fiction, he thought, shaking his
head. What's the point of writing it when you find yourself living it? He
stood up, laid the carton back on the shelf in the closet, and stripped off
his shirt.

   When he had finished buttoning the fresh shirt, he picked up the
canvas bag and laid it on the bed. He zipped it open and took out the two
battered manila folders. The booking slips, made whenever the kids had
been arrested, had the addresses of their parents on them. He located the
most recent slip in each folder and jotted down the addresses on a piece of
scrap paper. Folded into a square, the paper lay in his shirt pocket against
his heart as he left the room.
  His parents were watching the same game show, or maybe a different
one, as he stepped into the kitchen and took the ring of keys from the
board next to the bright yellow wall telephone. He pulled the front door
shut behind himself without them hearing.

                                    ***

   With a hamburger in one hand and vanilla milkshake balanced
precariously on the seat next to him, Ralph maneuvered the Ford through
the Harbor Freeway traffic. There was a certain elemental pleasure to the
car's motion in and out of the lanes—what he supposed he would feel if he
had ever learned to dance. He braked for a bus wheezing through its gears
ahead of him, whipped the Ford into a small gap in the next lane, cleared
the corner of the bus by inches and caught his milkshake as it started to
fall over. Pleased with himself, he pulled on the plastic straw, drowning
the last of the hamburger's dry gray meat.

  The sight of L.A.'s harsh sun on the bending vistas of asphalt and
concrete was so familiar and comfortable that it compressed and
decreased his fear. A smooth-edged ball in his gut, the fear was now heavy,
but at least bearable for the time being.

   The last of the milkshake gurgled up the straw and he tossed the empty
container on the car's floor. Pulling the scrap of paper from his shirt
pocket, he studied the first address, then glanced up and saw the sign for
the exit he wanted. He cut across two lanes and barely made it into the
mouth of the exit.

   The offramp was a long curving descent into another, darker world. The
freeway had been coated with the sun's glare. Below it, the light was shut
out by the massive cubes of the Nueva Esperanza Housing Project, like the
walls of some smoothly machined canyon. The Ford cruised slowly down
the project's main avenue with its dividers of yellow grass and stunted
palm trees, as Ralph searched the high windowless walls for the right
building number.

   He strained to make out the stencilled numbers, buried under layer
upon layer of slogans and names in the fluorescent spray paints with their
oddly kinked style of lettering. Ghetto baroque, thought Ralph. Some of
the words were meters high and would have required some kind of
primitive mountain-climbing skills to accomplish. He envisioned the wiry
Nueva teenagers rappelling down the faces of the buildings, propelling
themselves from side to side with squirts of paint like gravityless space
explorers in old '50s science fiction flicks. He shook his head to get rid of
the image and saw the number of the building for which he was looking.

   The Ford managed to squeeze into an open space at the curb between
two rusted, immobile hulks. A covey of dirty-faced children peered at him
through the smashed windshield of one of the old cars as he got out of the
Ford, locked it, and crossed the sidewalk to the building's entrance.

   His foot didn't quite clear the top of a mound of trash lying in the
doorway. The mound shifted and grumbled, opening one blood-rimmed
eye for a moment. Ralph walked faster into the dark lobby.

   Inside, he studied the list of names and apartment numbers posted
between the two elevators, each bearing an Out Of Order sign. For a few
uneasy seconds, the poorly-lit space brought back the memory of the
inside of the Thronsen Home. But the air here was sour-smelling with the
cramped miasma of old people's diseases and the dry odor of envelopes
and checks for too little money from the government offices downtown. A
squat woman wearing sneakers and a thin shawl scuttled away from the
mailboxes, glancing nervously at Ralph before she disappeared into a
stairwell. As he reached into his shirt pocket and took out the scrap of
paper, he turned back to the list.

   That must be the one, he decided, comparing the name on the paper
with one in the middle of the list. He re-pocketed the paper and headed
for the stairwell. A short man with some kind of a sheaf of newspaper in
his hand was talking to a hard-faced teenager slouched against the wall.

   His legs were starting to ache by the time he reached the fifth floor. The
building's stale odor was even worse in the upper hallway. He walked
slowly, scanning the doors. He heard one open after he passed by, then
quickly close again.

   One of the metal numbers, a five, dangled head downwards on the door
at the end of the hall. After a moment's hesitation he brought his hand up
and knocked.

  Muted footsteps came from inside the apartment, then the door,
spanned by a chain, opened a few inches. A woman's suspicious face
peered out at him.
   "Mrs. Alvarez?" Ralph had already planned what he would do. He
reached into his pants pocket, brought out his wallet and flipped it open
to his Opwatch ID card—the way cops in the movies did. "I'm from the,
uh, California State Correctional Research Commission. Like to talk to you
about your boy, Ruben." That had been the name on one of the folders.

  The woman's eyes flicked from the open wallet to his face. Her
expression didn't change.

   "You are Mrs. Alvarez, aren't you?" He returned his wallet to his pants.

   She nodded. "What's Ruben done now?" Her voice was sullen and
resentful.

   "Nothing. I just want to ask—"

   "You can't do nothing 'til I talk to Mr. Hahey at the Legal Clinic." Her
chin lifted and her eyes narrowed.

   "Ruben's not in any more trouble, Mrs. Alv—"

   "It's his probation officer," she interrupted angrily. "He causes all the
trouble. Why can't he let Ruben alone?"

   "I just want to ask you some questions—"

  "Sending him from this place to this place to this place. When's he
coming home?"

   "I don't know, Mrs. Alvarez. I just—"

   "What kinda questions?"

  Ralph took a deep breath. "When was the last time you heard from
Ruben?"

   A shrug. "He writes every week or so."

   He had expected that. "What does he say in his letters?"

   "Not so much. He don't write so good."

   "Does he say anything about the Thronsen Home? Anything about the
treatment program he's in?"

  "He says he's lonely out there in the desert. And he misses
Angela—that's his girlfriend. Por vida, he says."

  "Anything else?"

  "I think he said in his last letter he won the ping-pong tournament.
They gave him a coke for a prize." She tilted her head and inspected him
harder. "Hey, what're you asking these questions for?"

   Ralph swallowed and tried to smile. "We're attempting to find out what
the parents of the children in the Operation Dreamwatch program think
of it. Sometimes the parents get feedback from the kids that the people
who run the program aren't aware of."

  "Yeah, a mother always knows."

  He nodded. "What do you think of the program he's been sent to? This
Dreamwatch thing?"

   She looked suddenly tired, as if the mask had faded for a moment to
reveal the fatigue beneath the skin. "I don't know." She wiped her forehead
with the back of her hand. "I don't know anything about it. I guess it's
okay. Ruben's gotta be someplace, I know. He's kind of a wild kid. He gave
me a black eye once, and broke his sister's arm. That was the last time he
was home." She sighed. '"Maybe if his father hadn't left when he was a
baby…"'

  "But you feel the project's all right? There's nothing wrong with it?"

    Another shrug. "I didn't understand when Ruben's P.O. told me about
it. Something about dreams—I don't know. But if it changes Ruben just a
little bit, that'd be nice. Just so he didn't blow up all the time. Then he'd
be a good boy."

  "But you're sure he's okay?" persisted Ralph. "Nothing's happened to
him?"

   "Naw, he's okay. Hey, look." She went away from the door, then
returned with an object she handed to Ralph across the chain. "He sent
me that last week. He made it in woodshop." She smiled proudly.
   It was a short piece of pine board, varnished so inexpertly that little
half-beads of clear yellow had formed around the bottom edge. The words
TO MY LOVING MOM had been crudely incised into the wood. It looked
just like all the shop projects he had seen in the Juvenile Hall where he
had once worked. He started to hand it back through the door's narrow
opening but Mrs. Alvarez waved it away.

   "You keep it," she said. "Then you can tell them at the Juvenile Court
that Ruben's not a bad boy. And you can show them that." A kind of
childlike hopefulness had filtered into her voice.

   He hesitated, then nodded. "All right," he said. "I'll tell them." She's
probably been disappointed so many times, he thought. A couple more
lies won't hurt.

   As he headed down the stairwell, Ralph passed the man with the bundle
of newspapers he had seen in the building's lobby. Their eyes met for a
moment, then the short man continued trudging upstairs. Ralph noticed
that the papers under the man's arm were copies of the Revolutionary
Worker's Party Agitant. He hurried down the dark steps before the man
could come after him and ask him to subscribe.


                            CHAPTER 7
   The other address was in an expensive suburb north of the city. Ralph
left the Ford at the curb with the neatly stencilled house number on it and
walked up the little stone path winding across the trimmed lawn.

   The house itself looked like a Spanish mission that had melted in the
sun and spread out over the landscape. He pressed the doorbell, heard the
muffled chiming on the other side of the high wooden door, and waited.
After a minute he rang again, but still no one came.

   He turned to walk back to the Ford but a faint sound of splashing water
stopped him. His feet sinking in the lush grass, he circled the house and
came to a small wooden gate in the cinder block fence that extended
behind the house. Stretching on his toes, he peered over the gate and saw
a large, irregular swimming pool, like a blue gem cut in two, set in the
landscaped yard. A woman's head moved surrounded by ripples through
the water, her brown hair trailing. "Mrs. Teele?" called Ralph.
  The woman glanced up, saw him, then turned over on her back and
swam slowly towards the other end of the pool. "Just leave it at the front
door," she shouted over the splashing of her arms and legs.

  "I'm not delivering anything, Mrs. Teele." Ralph held his open wallet
above his head. "I'm from the California State Juvenile Treatment
Department. I'd like to talk to you about your son, Thomas."

   "Thomas?" she floated to the edge of the pool and hoisted herself
halfway out of the water. "Oh, you mean T.J.," she said, her face losing its
puzzlement. "How's he doing?" With a splash she was out of the pool and
reaching for a towel draped over an aluminum and plastic garden chair.
Her tan was so dark that she seemed to be some species of seal with legs.

  "That's what I want to talk to you about." He put his wallet away.

  Mrs. Teele walked towards the gate, the towel draped over her
shoulders. "Why ask me? You've got him. Isn't he still out there in the
desert someplace?"

  "That's right," said Ralph. "He's still committed to the Operation
Dreamwatch program. We'd like to know if there's been any
communication between you and your son—anything Thomas might not
have wanted to tell the staff at the Thronsen Home. Does he write to you?"

  She wiped a damp tendril of hair away from her brow. "I think he
writes every week or so. I'm not sure. Haven't really felt like opening my
mail for the last couple weeks."

  "Well… when you do read his letters, do you ever sense anything wrong?
Anything that just seems funny about them?"

   "Wrong?" She laughed. "Listen, I don't know what they're doing to my
kid out there, but anything's better for T.J. than letting him back out on
the street. It took thirty-eight stitches to put his head back together after
that last stunt of his. The car was totalled, of course, but we had insurance
on it, at least." Her voice had changed by the last words, making them
harsh and steely.

   He had to look hard before he could see the faint tracery of lines around
her eyes and mouth. They betrayed her real age and the tension beneath
the skin. "So you think he's okay, then?"
   "Sure." A quick nod of the head. "Look, you got any more questions? I
usually take a nap, or go shopping, or something, in the afternoon." She
pressed the fingertips of one hand against her brow.

  "No," said Ralph. "Wait a second. Has Thomas sent you a package or
anything recently?"

    "Let me go see." She walked to the house, slid open a glass door, and
stepped inside. In a few moments she returned with a narrow, flat parcel,
still wrapped with brown paper and twine. She tore it open to reveal a
varnished pine board.

  "Isn't that sweet?" she said, the same hard tone cutting under her
words. " 'To my loving mom.' " She handed the board over the gate to
Ralph.

   He glanced at it, then back at her. "Can I keep this? It might, uh, help
us with our study."

  "Go ahead. What do I want with a piece of junk like that?"

  "That's true. Well, thanks for your cooperation." He started to turn
away from the gate.

   "Hey. Wait." She smiled at him. "How come everybody's asking about
my kid today?" Her voice was relaxed again, the harshness pressed back
inside of herself.

  Ralph stiffened with her words. "Who else was asking about him?"

    "I know there isn't any connection, of course. Just a funny coincidence,
is all. You right now, and then that other guy this morning—or was it
yesterday morning? I'm not sure."

  "What other guy?"

    She blinked, surprised at his sudden intensity. "A little short guy. Real
dwarfy. He was selling subscriptions to some weird newspaper. Hold on,
I'll get you the sample copy he left." With an apprehensive glance over her
shoulder at him, she ran into the house and returned with the folded
newspaper.
   He reached over the gate and took it out of her hands. It was the latest
issue of the Agitant. A brief image shot behind his eyes, of a bundle of the
same issue clasped under the arms of a short man in Mrs. Alvarez's
building. Ralph gripped the paper together with the pine board in his
hands. "What did he ask you about your son?"

   "Oh. Gee—I don't remember. Just the same kind of thing you asked, I
think. He said he was doing a paper for some college class he was in." She
slowly backed a few steps away from the gate.

   Hold on, he told himself. Don't let her think anything's wrong. He
swallowed, then forced a smile.. "That is… kind of a funny coincidence, all
right." He nodded and started away. "Thanks for your help, Mrs. Teele."

  "Sure," she said. "Watch out for the bougainvillea behind you."

  He threw the board and the paper beside him on the seat of the Ford
and drove for several blocks. When Mrs. Teele's house was out of sight, he
pulled over to the curb and killed the engine.

  As he had suspected, had known in fact, the two varnished pine boards
were identical. Right down to the wood grain, he thought, turning each
over in his hands. Even the blobs of varnish at the bottom were the same.
They must have some kind of factory that stamps them out.

   The boards clattered as he tossed them onto the floor of the car. He
picked up the paper and unfolded it. After a few minutes of examining the
rough-edged newsprint, he threw it on top of the boards. It was just like
any other issue of the Agitant he had ever seen—the same as the ones that
came every two weeks to his mailbox at the base. He started up the car
and headed for the freeway back into the city.

   A little while later, he parked the Ford in a hamburger stand's parking
lot and watched the five p.m. rush hour traffic creep along a nearby
section of freeway. Meditatively, he sipped at a milkshake.

   Now what? he thought. There was something wrong about Operation
Dreamwatch—something big enough for someone to murder in order to
hide it—but he was going to have a hard time proving it to anyone else. He
couldn't just march into the L.A. office of the FBI, toss the two identical
boards on the counter, and expect much of a reaction. Probably put me
down as just another crank, he thought. Must get dozens every day.
   He looked up through the windshield and watched two plasma jet trails
trace through the late afternoon light. A sudden urge rose in him, an urge
to just get on the freeway and head north. The traffic would thin in a little
while, and then he'd be able to make pretty good time. Oregon or
Washington, he thought. Maybe even Canada. The desire to get away, to
forget everything about Operation Dreamwatch…

   But they'd find me. He squeezed the greasy hamburger wrapping into a
ball in his fist. They'd figure I'd found out something when I didn't come
back to the base, and they'd find me somehow. No matter where I hid.
And then they'd kill me. Just like Stimmitz and Helga.

   He knew there wasn't any choice now. He either found some kind of
proof about Operation Dreamwatch, something solid enough to get the
proper authorities into it, or else he didn't—and could start waiting for his
own death. They'll find me out sooner or later, he grimly told himself.

   He picked up the copy of the Agitant again and studied it. Tracking
down the parents of the two kids whose folders he had taken hadn't
revealed anything new to him, beyond the continuous forgery of letters to
allay any suspicion by the parents. The newspaper was now the only
thread he had left to follow.

   Somebody, he thought, is poking into the same things I am. But the
Revolutionary Workers Party? I don't get it. Why would they be
interested?

   Two possibilities came into his mind. The little group of radicals was
also aware of something being wrong with Operation Dreamwatch. Or
they were a front for whoever was behind the Opwatch project.

   Ralph considered the last. Yeah, that makes sense, he decided. They
could have been talking to the parents of the kids in the Thronsen Home
just to see how well their cover-up is working.

  But either way, the RWP was the only point in the foglike mystery he
could move towards. He opened the Agitant and located a column headed
"Activist Calendar." There was to be a public forum tonight at the RWP
headquarters in L.A., with somebody named Peter Vallejo talking on
"Ximento—The Facts Behind the Myth." Ralph memorized the
headquarter's address and closed the paper.
  That'll have to do for a start, he thought. He rolled down .the Ford's
window and stuffed the trash from his meal into the mouth of a container
shaped like a malevolently grinning clown.


                           CHAPTER 8
   The front yards of the little frame houses were choked with weeds. Most
of the windows were broken, showing like transparent teeth beneath the
rough boards that had been sloppily nailed over them. As Ralph parked
the Ford at the side of the narrow street, the old street lights came on,
spreading weak yellow splotches in the twilight.

   He got out, locked the Ford, and headed back along the cracked
sidewalk to the busier street he had turned off. The small vacant houses
remained silent, as though they were the discarded husks of their former
occupants. Where did they all go? thought Ralph as he walked past.
Probably all been squeezed into one of the Nueva buildings.

    At the corner of the block stood a large sign depicting the planned
extension of the Muehlenfeldt Center that would soon take the place of the
little houses. In an already vacant lot up the street, Ralph had seen some of
the bulldozers and cranes waiting behind a chain-link fence. The buildings
in the picture on the sign looked like quartz crystals or something—great
slabs of concrete and glass rearing into a sky bluer than any ever seen in
L.A. Nice stuff for Martians, maybe, thought Ralph. He turned away from
the sign, waited for a break in the traffic, then dashed across the street.

  The headquarters of the Revolutionary Workers Party was in a dingy,
two-story brick building. Ralph was sure he had found the right
address—there was a large poster in one of the upper windows: VOTE
RWP IN '84! in red letters that glowed from the lights in the room behind.

  The lower part of the building, he saw as he stepped up onto the curb,
was occupied by the Red Star Candy Store.

   Behind a dusty plate glass window protected by a folding metal lattice,
a few scattered candy boxes lay amid the corpses of small insects on their
backs. There were no lights on in the store.

   To the right of the store window a narrow door opened onto a flight of
stairs. The inside of the door was covered with the same poster as in the
window upstairs. Ralph looked inside, saw another light at the top of the
stairs and heard voices muffled by another door.

   There were more posters lining the walls of the stairwell as he climbed
up. The colors were faded, depicting causes and heroes and dates back
through the seventies and even into the late sixties. One, the earliest he
could make out in the dim light from above, was for a rally against some
war in-some place he had never heard of. I wonder if they managed to
stop it, he thought idly as he mounted the last few steps.

    The door at the top swung open under his hand. A flood of light poured
out and revealed a large room filled with books. They were arranged on
plywood shelves lining the walls and stacked on makeshift tables with
folding sawhorses for legs. A sign on the wall read PROGRESSIVE BOOK
STORE. A man with a pipe was sitting behind one of the tables with a
little metal cashbox on it. He glanced up from the book he was reading as
Ralph stepped in from the stairwell.

   Ignoring the man's eyes on his back, Ralph stood in front of the nearest
shelves and pretended an interest in the books. There were several copies
of each title, most still shiny with the look of new books that had never
been opened. Some were a little faded and covered with a fine layer of
dust.

   He pulled a book from one of the shelves. A bushy-bearded face glared
at him from the cover. He put it back and took another. This had two men
on it, one with a precise goatee and the other with a shock of black hair
and small glasses, gazing up at him from the depths of ancient
photographs. Ralph opened the book and pretended to read, while
sneaking a careful survey of the rest of what he could see of the RWP
headquarters.

   Through a wide doorway to the rear of the bookstore, he could see rows
of metal folding chairs facing an unoccupied podium. More of the posters
he had seen coming up the stairs lined the walls of the empty meeting hall.

   Behind him, someone came in from the stairwell and called hello to the
man with the pipe. Ralph put the book back on the shelf and glanced over
at the table. The newcomer, a girl in jeans and a service-station
wind-breaker, was talking animatedly to the man. They both were
laughing and ignoring him.
   Maybe he wasn't watching me to begin with, thought Ralph. Maybe
I'm getting nervous for no reason—at least so far. A little bolder, he
swung his head around. Through a doorway on the other side of the
bookstore another room was visible, its windows overlooking the street
outside. The room was occupied by battered wooden desks and
surrounded by shelves filled with yellowing stacks of Agitant back issues.

   Several party members were clustered around one of the desks, sipping
coffee from plastic cups and talking. A girl in a pullover sweater too large
for her was talking on a phone in the room's corner and writing something
down on a yellow notepad.

   Ralph suddenly perceived that the room he was looking into was in fact
L-shaped, with its far section hidden from view. He was craning his neck
to try to sight whatever was around the room's bend when he felt
something strike him just below the shoulder blade.

   His breath became something solid in his throat for a moment. He
whirled around, saw nothing, then looked lower and saw a face grinning
up at him. It was the short man he'd seen in Mrs. Alvarez's building. And
Mrs. Teele said he'd been around there, too, thought Ralph. Looking at
the man's round face and uneven teeth, Ralph felt the knot in his throat
swell and grow tighter. Does he remember seeing me? he wondered
uneasily.

  "Haven't seen you at our public forums before," said the man brightly.
He continued to grin up at Ralph.

  "Uh… no." He squeezed his voice out into the air. "I'm new in L.A."

   "Well, we're always glad to see some fresh faces around here." The smile
evaporated, and the man sighed. "Sometimes you get a little, you know,
wax museum feeling around here. Know what I mean? Same old people all
the time." He fell silent for a moment, then beamed at Ralph again. "Just
curious?"

  "Huh?" He wasn't sure he'd heard right.

   "Did you come just because you're curious, or are you, you know, into
political stuff?"

  "Well—"
   "I mean, it's all right," said the short man. "Lots of people start out just
curious, and then become interested, I guess you'd say." He clapped Ralph
with enthusiasm on the arm. "So stick around. Peter is really a great
speaker. And he knows this Ximento matter from the inside out—he was
in Brazil a couple of years ago for a conference." He paused, looking as if
he were waiting for something to be said.

   "Sounds interesting, all right," said Ralph.

    "And we've got a good pamphlet on the subject, too. Just a dollar.
Sometimes it's hard keeping the printed stuff up to date, the way things
go so fast. Sometimes a whole issue's forgotten before you have anything
to show people about it. But we were already researching this before the
Front started moving north, so we just had to kind of rush it into print, is
all. It's over there on the table. I'd buy you a copy, so you'd have it to read,
but that's sort of frowned upon. It's supposed to be the sign of a… well,
serious person to buy their own literature."

   "I'll have to get a copy."

  "Yeah, do that. You'll enjoy it." He glanced at the watch on his wrist.
"Hey, almost time for the forum to start. I'd better go make sure we got
enough chairs out. See you in the meeting hall in a few minutes." The
short man turned and hurried away.

    He didn't recognize me, thought Ralph as he wandered over to one of
the book-covered tables. He didn't make the connection. The room was
filled with people who had entered from the stairwell while they had been
talking. The crowd was clustered into groups conversing, or individuals
looking over the bookshelves by themselves.

   Ralph found the knot gone and air pouring into his lungs again. At least
he had penetrated this far safely—although nothing had been made any
less mysterious yet. From the table, he picked up a thin pamphlet with the
word "Ximento" in the title. Not very much for a dollar, decided Ralph,
putting it back down and heading for the entrance of the meeting hall.

   "Hey, buddy. Give me a hand with this, will you?"

   He stopped and turned towards the voice. A door he hadn't noticed
before stood open, revealing a large kitchen. A huge, ancient stove, like a
squared-off battle ship, and deep iron sinks stood beneath the bare light
bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The short man was pointing to a massive
cylindrical coffee urn standing on a counter by the door.

  "What's the matter?" said Ralph.

  "Help me carry this thing into the other room." The short man grabbed
one of the urn's handles. "It's for refreshments after the forum."

   Ralph shrugged and stepped into the kitchen. He grunted as he lifted
up on the urn's other handle. "Maybe you should've moved it first," he
said, "and then—" He stopped, sensing the door suddenly closing, shutting
off the sounds of the crowd in the bookstore. Letting go of the handle, he
stepped backward away from the short man. A dull noise he barely heard
and a wave of pain swept over him from the back of his head.

   "Hell," somebody was saying as Ralph staggered into the counter. "Not
like that—you can break somebody's skull like that!" He couldn't lift his
head, and saw only the dark and swimming floor as he groped his way out.
A pair of boots—they looked like old battered military issue—stepped into
his vision.

  "Hey, get him!" another voice said. How many were there in the room?
"Don't let—"

   "For Pete's sake." Somebody grabbed Ralph, pinning his arms to his
sides. "Give me that thing."

  "Careful."

  The room tilted on its side, darkening from red to black.

                                     ***

  "Hey. Come on. Wake up." The voice sounded familiar somehow.

  Ralph started to raise his eyelids but the first narrow crack of light
bounced off the back of his skull like a mallet. He clamped his eyes shut
again, his head throbbing with his pulse. "Go away," he said.

  "No, no. Come on," coaxed the voice.

  It was no use. Consciousness welled up in him with each imploding
wave of his blood. Where had he heard that voice before? He gripped the
sides of the cot he was lying upon and ran his tongue over his dry lips.
"What'd he hit me so hard for?" He groaned.

  "We're sorry about that." A different voice, a woman's. "We didn't
know...."

   He grunted, braced himself and opened his eyes wide. Yellowish electric
light clamored like a siren in his skull, then faded into a dull headache.

  "You okay?"

   "Yeah. Sure." Ralph lifted his head and turned it to one side. He found
himself looking into Stimmitz's face. For a few seconds their eyes met,
then Ralph laid his head back upon the cot. "Go to hell," he said. A cold
and bitter current seemed to pour out of his chest like a tide as he stared
up at the ceiling.

  "Hey, man, it's not what you think—"

   "I don't care," said Ralph in disgust. "I don't care how you did it, or why
you made me think you got torn to pieces on the dreamfield. I don't care
about any of that stuff. Real cute trick, all right." He swung his legs over
the edge of the cot and sat up, pulling his head down between his
shoulders to ease the clanging in his head. Past Stimmitz he could see two
or three other people in the room. "Do you mind if I leave now?" he said,
the corner of his mouth bending into a snarl. The bitterness had become
clearer, refined into a sense of betrayal and anger at having been fooled for
so long, whatever the obscure motivation for the fraud had been. No more,
he thought. I've had enough.

  "You are Ralph Metric, aren't you?"

   "Come on." He kneaded his forehead without looking up. "Cut it out,
Stimmitz. I don't know what all of this has been for, what the point was of
making me think you were dead and everything, but enough's enough."

   A few seconds of silence passed. "I'm not Michael Stimmitz," the other
said quietly. "I'm his brother Spencer."

   "Huh?" Ralph jerked erect. "What? His brother! You're kidding." He
looked into the other's face. The differences became obvious—a thinner
nose, closer set eyes than the Stimmitz he had known out at the Opwatch
base. "I… he never said he had a brother."

  Spencer Stimmitz shrugged. "Maybe he didn't think you needed to
know."

  "I don't get it." Ralph's anger had drained away, leaving his former
confusion. "Why'd you hit me over the head?"

  "We didn't know who you were." Just behind Spencer was the short
man. "We thought you might be one of Muehlenfeldt's agents."

    "Me? I thought you were." Ralph looked past Spencer at the others
crowding the small room. The short man was there, looking more
grim-faced than he had in the Progressive Bookstore. Towering over him
was the man whose battered Army boots he had glimpsed in the kitchen,
the one, he guessed who had knocked him out. There was something
subtly wrong about the wide-staring eyes and the hands fidgeting inside
the pants pockets. I'm lucky my skull's still in one piece, thought Ralph. If
it is.

   Leaning against a door, arms folded, was the woman he had heard
speak a moment ago. For several seconds he stared directly into her face.
He had seen her before—carrying a camera in the desert outside the
Opwatch base.

  "I'm sorry," she said, smiling at him. "We were a little hard on you. But
you know we can't take any chances."

  The way she said the words you know disturbed him. Before he could
open his mouth to say anything, Spencer broke in again.

   "It's a good thing I came down here." He emitted a quick, barking
laugh. "They were talking about how to get rid of your corpse."

    "Great," muttered Ralph. He carefully shook his aching head from side
to side, but nothing became any clearer. "This may sound stupid," he said
at last, "but what's going on around here? Who are you people, anyway?"

   No one spoke for a moment. "Hey," said Spencer, glancing back at the
others, "maybe you hit him too hard. It's affected his memory."

  Scowling, the man with the army boots brushed Spencer aside and
stood in front of Ralph. "Maybe," he said darkly, "this dude's diddling
around with us." He pursed his lips and spat.

  Ralph looked at the gob of spittle dead-centered between his feet, then
back up as the man brought his hand close to Ralph's face. A slight
metallic whisper and a knife with a long blade Hashed across his vision.

   He stared at the distorted reflection of his face in the shiny blade, until
an understanding of its macabre purpose swept like a hot electric wire
into his mind. The cot slid into the knife-wielder's knees as Ralph
scrambled backwards across it. He flattened himself against the wall. "Are
you crazy?" he shouted. "Get him away from me!"

   "Come on," coaxed the short man, tugging at the other's arm. "Put it
away, Gunther. Not now." The big man looked sullen but with another
small noise, the blade disappeared. "He gets nervous," the short man said,
turning to Ralph.

   "Just keep him away from me." Ralph braced his shoulders against the
wall to stop their trembling. He stood there, working at breathing for a
few moments before he spoke again. "I don't know who you people think I
am, but I wish you'd let me in on it, too."

   The woman and the three other men exchanged glances. I've blown it,
thought Ralph, watching them. They're probably mulling over the
corpse-disposal problem again.

   "Aren't you Ralph Metric?" said Spencer, looking puzzled. He held up a
wallet that Ralph recognized as his own. "You've got a California driver's
license and an Operation Dreamwatch ID that says you are."

  He nodded without speaking.

  "Well, then you can relax." Spencer shrugged and spread his hands
open. "This is it. I mean, we're the Alpha Fraction."

   "The what?" Ralph was beginning to wonder if something had been
knocked loose when they had hit him. Every new piece of information
seemed to make things even more confused.

  "The Alpha Fraction. Didn't my brother tell you to come find us?"
  "You know, don't you," said Ralph slowly, "that your brother's dead."
He watched the other's face.

   "We've assumed that." Spencer's voice remained level and calm. "But he
wrote us about you in his last letter." He pulled a dirt-creased envelope
from his hip pocket, unfolded it and extracted a photograph.

   Ralph took it from the outstretched hand. It was a black-and-white
shot of himself, taken sometime without his knowledge on the Opwatch
base: a colorless, two-dimensional Ralph Metric frozen in front of one of
the buildings out in the middle of the desert. Probably just wandering
around, he thought, studying the photo. As usual.

   He turned the picture over. On the back were several lines in the late
Michael Stimmitz's precise handwriting. Spence—Possible recruit, name
of Ralph Metric. Should be able to trust him: Will be filling him in
gradually, & send him on to L.A. if nothing turns up here. M.

   "So that's what it was all about," murmured Ralph. He tapped the
picture with his forefinger.

   "What's that?" said Spencer.

   "All that stuff your brother talked about. Just before… what happened
to him. Universes, and stuff. He was trying to recruit me, but he didn't
have time to tell me everything before he was killed. That's what he was
trying to do."

  "He didn't say anything about the Alpha Fraction?" asked the short
man.

   "No," said Ralph. "Nothing."

    The man sighed. "Let's go upstairs and see if there's any coffee left. This
is going to take a while."

  Ralph pushed himself away from the wall and stepped around the cot.
He held out the photograph to Spencer, who didn't appear to see it.

   "Do you know how Mike died?" said Spencer.

   "I was there. I saw it." He watched as Spencer nodded and turned away,
expressionless. Someone touched his arm. He turned and saw beside
himself the woman he had first seen in the desert, now making a small
gesture with her hand.

   "He'll be okay," she whispered, glancing at Spencer's back disappearing
through the room's doorway. "He was still hoping, is all. About his
brother."

  The relief Ralph had felt at the small light penetrating the accumulated
mysteries was muted. He followed the woman out of the room and up an
unlit stairway.


  Interlude: Somewhere in a Corridor of Power


   Although the city roared ceaselessly below, it was quiet aboard the
jetliner. The carpet was like an ankle-deep sea, temporarily calm. Seamed
with age, Senator Aaron Muehlenfeldt's face was reflected in the circular
window as he looked down upon the scattered four a.m. traffic on the
freeways. Pinpoints of red and white light were wandering among the
great L.A. buildings.

  "It's ready, sir."

   The senator swivelled his high-backed leather chair around to face a
young man on the other side of the oval desk, his face as fixed and
emotionless as the shoulder-patch on his sleeve. He rested his hand upon
the controls of the tape recorder. Muehlenfeldt waited for him to speak
again.

   With brisk efficiency, the young man opened a manila clasp envelope
and laid its contents out on the desk. "This was recorded," he said, "about
an hour ago, using one of our devices planted at the Revolutionary
Worker's Party headquarters. Through voice-print analysis we've
identified the voices of the members of the group called 'the Alpha
Fraction.' " He slid a large black-and-white photo across the desk.

   Muehlenfeldt picked it up, carefully holding it by the tips of his
brown-spotted fingers. It snowed a short man waiting in line at a
hamburger stand. All the features in the shot were foreshortened,
compressed together by the telephoto lens that had been used.
   "That's Mendel Koss," said the young man. "He's been acting as head of
the group since the elimination of their colleague Michael Stimmitz last
week." He slid another photo cross the desk. "That's Spencer Stimmitz, the
younger brother of the late Michael."

  The senator glanced at the pictures, then picked up the next one that
came towards him.

   "That's the woman called Sarah." The young man hesitated. "We
haven't been able to ascertain a last name for her yet. There's only one
other member of the group, a man by the name of Gunther Ortiz, but his
voice isn't on the tape. So he was either not present or remained silent."

  The photos adhered to each other as the senator pushed them aside.
"On the phone," he said in his resonant, cello-like baritone, "you
mentioned another person being there."

  "Yes, that's right." The young man extracted another photo from the
envelope and pushed it towards the senator.

  It was a blow-up of an Operation Dreamwatch FD card. Not much
could be told from the blurry face-shot. He tossed it on top of the others.

   The young man tapped the reel of recording tape on the machine in
front of him. "From the conversation we've identified this other voice as
that of Ralph Metric. He's one of the watchers at the base."

  One of the senator's snow-white eyebrows arched upwards. "A watcher?
What's he doing in L.A.?"

  "He's on vacation, I believe."

  "Come on." Muehlenfeldt slapped the desk top. "What's he doing there?
Seems like quite a lot of initiative for a watcher to take."

    "We're aware of that." The young man pulled from the envelops a sheet
of paper crowded with words and numbers. "We contacted the base and
they wired us the record of his serotonin/melatonin activity monitoring.
It's been well below the necessary levels since he was hired over six months
ago. We're checking now to see if he has any abnormalities in his past
history that we might have overlooked before."
   "Have the monitoring equipment checked out, too." The cello's strings
grated. "First that Stimmitz person got past them, and now this one."

  In a small book the young man scribbled a note.

   "Now what's all this about?" said the senator irritably, waving a hand
at the tape recorder.

   "At approximately two-thirty a.m., quite some time after the weekly
public forum at the Revolutionary Workers Party headquarters was over,
the members of the Alpha Fraction and Ralph Metric were picked up by
the device we have planted in the meeting hall. We assume they had
previously been in a part of the building where we don't have a device
yet."

  The senator grunted and shook his head in disgust, but said nothing.

   "From their recorded conversation," continued the young man, "it
appears as if Metric had had no previous contact with the group and was
up to this point completely ignorant of its existence, let alone its purpose.
Most of the discussion consists of the group members filling him in on the
nature and past history of the Alpha Fraction, thus confirming much of
what we had already found out about them." He arched his eyebrows as
his hand hovered over the tape recorder's play button. When the senator
nodded, he pushed it. "The first voice is that of Mendel Koss," he
whispered quickly.

   A small clattering noise and a voice, slightly tinny from electronic
imitation, emerged from the machine. "… you see, Ralph, if we didn't need
another person—because of what happened, you know, to Mike—I'd
probably tell you to get out of here and forget all this."

  Another voice, a woman's. "But we need your help."

  "That's the woman named Sarah," the young man said to Muehlenfeldt.

   "Well, just what is it you're trying to do?" Another man's voice,
sounding puzzled.

  "That's Metric."

  A cough, and the voice of Mendel Koss spoke again. "We've been… kind
of investigating the Operation Dreamwatch project for quite a while
now—"

   "Who's we?" Metric's voice. "The RWP?"

   "No," said Koss. "Just the Alpha Fraction. The rest of the RWP, both
the local and the national organization, doesn't even know we exist."

   "How come you call it a 'fraction?' " asked Metric.

   A second passed before Koss answered, a trace of impatience evident in
his voice. "That's just what organizations like the RWP call their
committees. They have an Executive Fraction, and Publications and
Fund-raising Fractions, and stuff like that; it's instead of calling them
committees. Just the way they've always done it. 'Alpha?' I don't
know—that was Mike's idea. Had to call it something, I guess."

   "It was all Mike's idea," came another voice. "He created the fraction.
He was the first one to suspect there was something strange going on out
there with Operation Dreamwatch."

   "That was Spencer Stimmitz," said the young man. "He was referring,
of course, to his brother." The senator nodded and leaned a little closer to
the machine.

   "You see," continued Koss's voice, "Mike had quit the RWP. He had
doubts about the effectiveness of the party and the work it's been doing.
While he was at loose ends, he hired on with Operation Dreamwatch. He
was one of the first to be recruited. It wasn't too long before the little odd
things about the project started to pile up in his mind, enough to really
raise his suspicions about the whole thing. He got in touch with the few of
us in the RWP that he trusted—"

   "He wasn't sure about the rest of the party," interrupted Sarah's voice.
"He didn't want to hazard tipping our hand to any agents and infiltrators
in the party. That's always a problem in groups like ours."

   "Helga Warner was one of you?" said Metric.

  "She hired on with the project," said Koss, "because Mike felt that the
two of them might be able to find out more."
  "Did they?"

   "Not much more than you have already. Or at least not anything that
got back to us before they were killed. We knew their plans for going
inside the Thronsen Home, but yours is the first word we've gotten about
what's actually in there."

   "Do you know what it means?" Metric's voice seemed to rush from the
tape recorder. "The kids on ice and everything?"

  "Hell," said Koss. "Who can tell what somebody like Muehlenfeldt is
doing with all this stuff."

   "How do you know Muehlenfeldt's really behind it? Maybe the senator
doesn't know what the Opwatch people are doing with all the money he
gives them from his foundation."

  "That's something we are sure about." Sarah's voice was grim. "Mike
had sneaked into the base commander's office and found a whole file of
memoranda from Muehlenfeldt. Nothing that gave away the project's real
purpose, of course, but enough to let us know that Muehlenfeldt's been
personally directing it from the beginning."

    "Don't you think you're kind of outmatched, then?" Metric's voice rose
in pitch. "I mean, that guy's got billions. If Operation Dreamwatch is his
pet kick, and he doesn't want anyone to know what's going on, how's your
little fraction going to find out? Let alone stop whatever he's doing with
it."

  "We've got plans," said Koss.

  "Like what?"

  "Well, it's getting kind of late—"

   The young man pushed another button on the tape recorder. The voice
of Mendel Koss came to a halt in mid-sentence. "That's all the important
part," he said.

   "They left the RWP headquarters and dispersed. Metric went with
Spencer Stimmitz to get some sleep and to be briefed on the Alpha
Fraction's plans."
  The senator leaned back in his chair. "Let's hear that tape, then."

   "I'm afraid," said the young man slowly, "we don't have a device planted
at Stimmitz's apartment. He has quite a bit of electronics expertise, and it
was decided that the chances were too great of his detecting anything we
tried to put in there."

  "So you still don't know what they're planning?"

  The young man hesitated a second. "No."

  "Or anything about the other group?"

  His lips compressed, the young man shook his head.

   The senator's fingers laced together and rested on the desk top. "I
assume, though, that you have plans for finding out."

   "Uh… yes. Yes, we do. We've just about completed the preparations for
a means of breaking the fraction open. We're… very hopeful about it."

   "Fine," said Muehlenfeldt quietly, the cello strings whispering their
lowest note. "I suggest you hurry with it."

  His face bloodless, the young man nodded, picked up the tape recorder,
and headed quickly for the rear of the plane.

   When he was alone, the senator stood at the jetliner's window and
looked down at the city below. Most of San Francisco was still dreaming.


                           CHAPTER 9
   Spencer pocketed the key and pushed open the door of his apartment.
"There you go," he said, waving his hand grandly as Ralph stepped inside.
Pushed against one wall was a tired-looking sofa half-covered with old
magazines and newspapers. "You can bed down here." Spencer jumbled
the papers into a loose stack and dropped them on the floor. "I think I got
some extra blankets in one of the closets."

   While he disappeared into the back of the apartment, Ralph looked
around the front room. A small pagoda of dirty cups and saucers tottered
on a low table constructed of plywood and cement blocks. The walls were
randomly spotted with pages torn from books and other sources. Ralph
stepped over to one and found himself looking at a yellowing newsphoto of
a kneeling man engulfed in flames. Blurred oriental faces watched with
varying expressions. He glanced at the picture next to it—a glossy
publicity still of a grinning dog captioned, Rin-Tin-Tin—before turning
away from the wall.

   Carrying a mound of wadded-up blankets, Spencer came back into the
room. He tossed them onto the sofa and brushed the lint from his hands.
"That should do it."

  "Who's Rin-Tin-Tin?" Ralph tilted his head towards the picture on the
wall.

    "Huh?" Spencer looked around and spotted the dog's image. "Oh,
yeah—that. He was a dog they made a whole bunch of movies about, long
time ago. Mike used to go to film festivals at some of the universities
around here and watch them. Rin-Tin-Tin movies were kind of a fad for a
while, I guess. They really meant something to Mike, though—a lot of
weird things did. He used to tell me that that stupid dog was closer to
being human than most people. 'At least he's trying,' he'd say." Spencer
fell silent, gazing across the room at the picture.

   After a moment, Ralph spoke. "I'm sorry about what happened to your
brother." He coughed. "There wasn't much I could do. I was pretty scared
at the time."

   Spencer shrugged and exhaled noisily. "Yeah, well, who wouldn't have
been? Even Rin-Tin-Tin. That slithergadee thing sounded pretty fierce
when you were telling us about it back at the headquarters. Forget it. Let's
go see if we can find anything in the kitchen."

    Ralph sat at a table littered with unidentifiable electronic parts and a
soldering iron while Spencer rummaged in the refrigerator. He held a
carton of milk to his nose and sniffed. "Should still be good," he decided.
With his forearm he cleared a space on the table, then set down the milk
and two unmatched cups. "Good for the stomach lining," he said. "After
all that damn coffee."

   Over the rim of his cup, Ralph watched as Spencer abstractedly pushed
a couple of transistors around with his finger. They were different colors,
like pills, and rolled across the table's surface, waving their small end
wires.

  "How well did you get to know Mike?" said Spencer, not looking up.
"While you were out there at the Opwatch base."

  "Not very well," said Ralph, "it's not the kind of place where you make
much contact with anybody." Or anything, he thought to himself.

   "You know, Mike was okay. As older brothers go. He was—let's see—a
junior in high school when I was in sixth grade; the school psychologist
diagnosed me as hyperactive, because I threw a blackboard eraser at one
of the teachers and talked a lot. So anyway, they were going to give me
these pills. Doctor's dope, right? It's legal as long as they want you all
zonked out. But when Mike heard about it, he loaded me on the back of
this little motorcycle he had, and we rode it all the way to San Diego.
Checked into a motel—he gave the desk clerk some story about us being
part of a rock group and the rest of the band hadn't shown up yet. We
waited a couple of days, then he called our parents and said we'd come
back if they wouldn't make me take the stuff." Spencer picked up one of
the transistors and laughed, shaking his head. "He told me later that he
didn't do it because he actually cared for me that much. It was just a
matter of principle for him."

   Ralph set his cup down. "You must have felt pretty bad when you saw
those pictures Sarah took."

  "What pictures?" Spencer's brow creased in puzzlement.

  "The ones Sarah took out in the desert. By the Opwatch base. You
know, of that big bloodstain on the ground."

   "I don't know what you're talking about," said Spencer. "Sarah's never
gone out to the Opwatch base. We decided it might raise too much
suspicion if any of us were seen poking around there. And I don't think
Sarah even owns a camera."

   Frowning, Ralph watched his forefinger circle the rim of the empty cup
before him. When telling the Alpha Fraction about Michael Stimmitz's
death and the other strange things that had happened at the base, he
hadn't mentioned spotting Sarah aiming a camera at the bloody spot. He
had assumed the others knew about it—that she had gone out there on the
group's orders and had reported to them on what she had found. But she
didn't, thought Ralph. They don't even know she went out there.

   "You okay?" said Spencer.

   "Yeah." Ralph nodded. "I must've gotten confused—thinking about
something else. Everything's been going so fast, it gets hard to keep
track." So what's it mean? persisted his thought. Something else is going
on with these people—or at least with one of them. With an effort, he
pushed Sarah's now enigmatic face from his mind. "Tell me about this
plan," he said. "That I'm supposed to help you people with."

   Spencer pushed aside his own cup and the empty milk carton. He drew
an assemblage of electronic parts to himself and studied it. "Remember
the Opwatch recruiting office downtown?" he said, poking a finger at one
of the soldered wires. "Where you first signed on with them?"

   "Sure. What about it?"

   "We're going to bug it."

   Ralph stared at him for a moment before he could say anything. "That's
ridiculous."

   The wire pulled loose and Spencer looked up. "Why do you say that?"

   "Are you kidding?" said Ralph. "For Pete's sake, that office is nothing
but a closet with a desk and phone stuffed in it. You're not going to be able
to pry any secrets out of a place like that—there wouldn't be any."

   "We've got reason to believe differently. There's more to that little office
than you'd think. Our plan's worth a try, at least."

  "You people are crazy." Ralph's disappointment had turned into anger.
"This sounds like a pretty good way to get picked up by the police for no
good reason."

    "Hey, we're not asking that much from you," said Spencer. "It'll be safe.
If anything goes wrong, you'll have plenty of time to clear out." He pulled
another wire loose. "Of course, if that's too much for you…"

   Ralph snorted, but felt blood tinge his face. "When are you going to try
to do this?"
  "Now that you're here, we'll probably pull it tomorrow night."

  "What? Isn't that kind of soon?"

   "We've got everything ready," said Spencer. "And besides, we don't have
much choice. We're running out of time. If we don't get some kind of lead
pretty soon, whatever's building up with Operation Dreamwatch is going
to go off. It might already be too late to do anything about it."

  "Great," said Ralph sourly. "In that case, why bother?"

   "It's the only game in town," said Spencer, looking up from the device
in his hands and staring directly into Ralph's eyes. "Don't you smell it?
Mike could. And so can the rest of us now. Whatever's going on out there
in the desert is something big. And something—" He stopped, then went
on, his voice lower in pitch. "Different."

  Something cold tensed the skin on Ralph's arms. "What do you mean?"

   "Doesn't it strike you that way? Some of the odd things about
Operation Dreamwatch. Like all those kids you found in the Thronsen
Home, all kept unconscious, and those dreams they put them through.
Mike told us about those. It's not just that that stuff seems
inhuman—people have done crueller things, I suppose—but doesn't it all
seem, well, non-human, too?"

   He's crazy, thought Ralph, a sick fear opening in his stomach. But the
eyes that met his from across the table were sane. "Go on," he said.

   "Have you ever looked at pictures of rich people? Really looked? I don't
mean people who just have some money, but the ones who have so much
they're like whole nations inside their own skins. The ones with the power.
Have you ever noticed something odd about the way they look?"

  "Maybe," said Ralph carefully.

   Spencer's voice became taut as a wire. "If beings from another star
wanted to take over this world, use it for something without our knowing,
who would they take the place of, substitute themselves for? Any dumb
schmuck out on the street? No—the super-rich. The ones with the power."

  "You gotta be putting me on," said Ralph. "I mean, I used to read all
that science fiction stuff, too, but I never let it affect my thinking."

  Casually, Spencer tilted his head to one side. "Accounts for a lot of
twentieth-century history."

   "Maybe, but I still don't believe it." He had almost convinced himself
that Spencer had been kidding him.

   "Okay, so you explain why the ones with all the money look different
from the rest of us. Think they eat the stuff or something?"

   Through the window over the sink, Ralph could see the sky beginning to
lighten. He exhaled and rubbed his eyes. "This is more than I can take
right now. I have to get some sleep." He got up and headed for the front
room.

   "My brother used to say that the only reason anybody slept more than
four hours a day was because they had nothing better to do." Spencer
picked up the soldering iron and switched it on.

   And look where it got him, thought Ralph. He was almost irritable
enough from fatigue to say it out loud, but refrained. With his shoes off,
he nested the blankets around himself on the sofa and fell asleep.

                                       ***

   A dream filled with great sliding fangs chased him back into
consciousness. He opened his eyes and let the sight of the cluttered room
press back the darkness inside.

   Spencer wasn't in the apartment. A note was taped to the refrigerator.
Ralph—Back in a bit. Feel free to eat whatever you find. S. While one
hand scraped the crusts from the corners of his eyes, Ralph held the note
with the other, read it, and tossed it on the kitchen table. Yawning, he
shuffled back to the refrigerator and pulled out another nearly empty milk
carton. Half a loaf of rye bread was already on the table, nestled among
the electronic parts. He sat down and started to eat, propping his head up
with one hand.

   Must be noon at least, he thought, watching a dusty shaft of light fall
into the room. As a child he had always felt a sense of uneasiness or
dread—even sin—at getting up so late. Probably worried that the rest of
the world was going to sneak something past me. The feeling had
dissipated while at the base.

   He took another slice of bread, got up, and sat on the edge of the sink.
Through the window he could see another apartment building and a
section of street with cars parked along it. Somewhere near the RWP
headquarters, his parents' Ford was still waiting for him. I should go get it
, he thought suddenly. I should get out of here as fast as I can.

   Things had gone so fast yesterday that he had been sucked along with
the Alpha Fraction's momentum without thinking. But in this harsh, still
light, a part of him was scared. A premonition of pain and trouble
increasing with no end, except death, in sight. Get out, he thought again,
gazing at the street.

   Not yet, he told himself. He went back to the table and drank the rest of
the milk straight from the carton. There would be, he knew deep within
himself, time enough for giving up later, after everything possible had
gone wrong. Right now it all still felt too good to be awake and plotting in
L.A. As far, he thought, from the base and its sleepwalking death as I can
get.

   He heard the apartment's door open. "Spencer?" he called as he headed
for the other room.

   It wasn't. Sarah, carrying a large brown paper bag, pushed the door
shut behind herself with her foot. "Hi," she said casually. Balancing the
bag in the crook of one arm, she brushed her hair to one side of her face
with her free hand. "Where's Spencer?"

    "Out some place." Ralph shrugged. "His note said he'd be back in a
little while."

   She nodded and walked past him into the kitchen. Setting the bag amid
the clutter on the table, she began distributing the groceries inside it to
the cupboards and refrigerator.

    From the doorway, Ralph watched her in silence for a few moments.
When she bent down to put some cans in one of the cupbards below the
counter, her long golden hair fell forward over her shoulders. She brushed
it back with the same motion of her hand and slight toss of her head. He
wondered why something about that should disturb him, until he
remembered. The first time he had seen her do it was out in the desert,
when she had straightened up, holding the camera. The bloodstain had
been right at her feet.

    "You people must be rich or something," said Ralph finally. "Spending
all your time on this Alpha Fraction stuff and still being able to buy
groceries."

   Sarah glanced at him sharply while her hands folded the empty paper
bag into a flat square. "We don't spend all our time on it," she said.
"Spencer is the only one who doesn't have a job. The rest of us pay his rent
and buy his food so he can spend his time building the electronic
equipment we're going to use. He's pretty good at that stuff—he built the
alarm bypass his brother used to get into the Thronsen Home." She turned
away and slid the folded bag into the little space between the refrigerator
and the counter.

  "Do you make much money as a photographer?"

   Her brow creased as she stared at him. "I run a turret lathe," she said.
"At one of the Army contractors downtown. Where'd you get the idea I
was a photographer?"

  "Maybe," he said, "from when I saw you out by the Opwatch base.
Taking pictures of that spot on the ground."

   "I don't know what you're talking about." She crossed the kitchen and
pushed past him, but he caught her by one wrist. Angrily, she jerked her
hand free, pivoted in the middle of the front room, and glared at him. The
pieces of paper tacked to the wall fluttered.

   "Look." She put fists on hips. "It's none of your business, okay? Just
forget about it."

  Ralph leaned back against the inside of the kitchen doorway. "I thought
we were all supposed to be on the same team now."

   The anger flared in her eyes. "All right," she said quietly. "That's why
I'm asking you not to tell the others. Believe me."

  He watched as she turned and left, pulling the door shut behind her.
The sound of her footsteps faded. I don't believe her, he thought.
Distractedly, he studied the space she had occupied in the middle of the
room and wondered how he was going to tell the other members of the
fraction.

   The door swung open again and Sarah walked back into the apartment.
"I'm sorry," she said, standing only a couple of feet away from Ralph. "I
shouldn't have blown up at you—maybe it's because of all the pressure
we're under. I guess I didn't like the idea of being spied on."

  "What were you doing out there, though?" said Ralph. "And why didn't
you tell the others?"

   She took a deep breath before speaking. "I was out in the desert
because I'd had a feeling about Mike—I knew something had happened to
him. I got that crummy old camera from a pawn shop and drove out near
the base. It didn't take me long to find the bloodstain. I've got kind of a
knack for finding things. Or at least things that concern people important
to me. It was only after I got back to L.A. and had the pictures developed
that I realized they couldn't help anything. I couldn't even explain them,
and it was too late to do anything for Mike."

  "Wouldn't the others have understood if you'd told them?"

    "I wasn't worried about Spencer and Mendel." She paused for a
moment. "It's Gunther that scares me. Something's happening to him. We
all thought he was stable, but the tension seems to be pushing him back
into his army memories. He was given a psychiatric discharge before he
joined the RWP."

   Ralph nodded, remembering the stories he'd heard of certain wards in
the veterans' hospitals where they kept the ones who'd been totally
consumed by war's guilt and horror. Even from over a viewscreen it had
been too much for some. So that's what's wrong with Gunther, thought
Ralph. You can see it in him—all the burning villages and towns, and the
screaming South American children compressed in his gut.

   "That's why I didn't tell them," said Sarah. "I was afraid Gunther might
go off the deep end if he thought that one of us had betrayed something he
identified with. No telling what he might do."

   "All right," said Ralph. "I won't tell the others." He turned away. A few
seconds later, he heard the door open and close again, and he was alone,
wondering how important Michael Stimmitz had been to her.

   Some time later, Spencer returned. He was carrying a small box that
rattled and clinked with some type of electronics' gear. "I phoned Mendel,"
he said. "It's all set for tonight." He went into the kitchen and set the box
down on the table. "Anything happen while I was out?"

  "Sarah came by with some groceries," said Ralph.


                          CHAPTER 10
   The moon shone above the blue mercury-vapor street lamps.
Sandwiched between Mendel at the wheel of the van and Spencer on the
other side, Ralph watched the L.A. streets flick past. In the rearview
mirror, he could see the rows of electronic equipment banked along the
van's interior walls. Mendel steered hard around a corner and all three
sets of shoulders bumped into one another.

   "Okay," said Spencer, straightening up. "Now here's the deal. We've
already managed to get a tap on the computer terminal at the Opwatch
recruiting office. It's what's called a vector tap—that's like a long-range
bug without wires. We've gotten a printout of all of the Opwatch programs
on the duplicate terminal here in the van. Got the picture so far? Now,
everything we've gotten through the tap up to this point hasn't been very
revealing—mostly just material requisition records and stuff like that. But
we've discovered the existence of a Master Historical Program, Limited
Access, which should contain the data we're looking for. That's what
you're going to help us get."

   "What do you need me for?" said Ralph. "As long as you've got a tap on
their computer, why not just pull out what you need, like the other
programs?"

   "Ah. Not so easy." Spencer shook his head. "There's a lock on that
program. Limited access, right? Before the Master Historical Program can
go through the Opwatch computer, and then into our tap terminal, the
locking device has to be deactivated."

   "And you want me to do that?" Ralph stared at him. "You think I'm a
cat burglar or something? I can't sneak in there and flip the switch or
whatever it is any better than one of you could."
   "Wrong. You're the only one who can." Spencer grinned. "The program
lock isn't in the Opwatch recruiting office."

  Ralph felt exasperated. "Then what are we going there for?" he
demanded. "And what's so special that only I can do?"

    "The program lock isn't in the recruiting office," said Spencer. "And it
is. They're got a field projection device there, a miniature version of the
ones out on the base. The little one in the office creates a separate
dreamfield of about three square meters. The locking device for the
Master Historical Program is in that space, that pocket universe."

   "Wait a minute. How could that work? I thought the dreamfield was a
projection of the people who are hooked into it through their
subconscious. Like the kids out in the Thronsen Home. So who's dreaming
this little field?"

   "The computer." Spencer looked pleased. "Ingenious, really. One of its
programs is a continuous analogue of a human dream. It's as if part of the
computer is actually dreaming of a nine-by-nine-foot room with the
program locking device in it. To deactivate the lock, you have to get into
that little dreamfield."

  "And I suppose you've figured out a way to get in," said Ralph.

   Spencer pulled a scuffed-looking briefcase from beneath the van's seat.
He snapped its latches and set it open on his lap. Inside was a flat
rectangular box made of gray metal. Two copper wires emerged from the
sides and were formed into loops, resting atop a black plastic knob.

   "This," said Spencer, "is the way in. It's a miniaturized version of the
line shack out at the Opwatch base. It's got enough power to put one
person into a small field like the one we're talking about. All you have to
do is hold these two loops and turn the—"

  "Hold it." Ralph drew away from him. "What do you mean, you? Are
you planning on me doing this?"

  "You have to. You're the only one who can."

  "How come? Why can't somebody else do it?"
    "Dammit," muttered Mendel, hunched over the steering wheel. "Show a
little backbone."

    Spencer's grin had evaporated. "Uh, we found out something about
what happens when you hire on as a watcher for Operation Dream watch;
something they don't tell you about. Some kind of surreptitious alteration,
using microwave energy, is made in your brain chemistry, in order for it
to be possible for you to go out on the dreamfield. They do it to you while
you're sleeping. Without that change, the insertion device—the line
shack—doesn't work at all. Mike was going to be the one who entered this
little dreamfield and unlocked the program, but he was killed before I had
the equipment ready. That's why you have to go instead."

  Ralph felt something slide sickeningly under his gut. They did
something to me, he thought. Without my even knowing it. Something in
my brain is different. That'll teach me. "Well," he said weakly. "I guess I
don't have that much to lose. But I don't know anything about
computers—how am I supposed to get the damn thing unlocked?"

   "There's a radio circuit built in here." Spencer lifted the device out of
the briefcase. "See? A signal can still get into a field that small. I'll be able
to give you instructions."

   All three of them lurched forward as Mendel brought the van to a halt.
The empty briefcase slid from Spencer's lap and fell to the floor. "Sorry,"
said Mendel, shutting off the headlights. "There's Sarah."

   After a few seconds of peering into the darkness in front of them, Ralph
could perceive the outlines of a car. It was several yards ahead of them in a
corner of a deserted parking lot. One of its doors opened and Sarah's
silhouette headed toward them. She was carrying a small bundle in one
hand.

   Mendel and Spencer got out of the van as the figure approached. Ralph
followed them and stood, tensed against the coldness of the night air. For
the first time, he noticed the towering building the lot surrounded. The
Muehlenfeldt Center, thought Ralph. It hung over them like a sheer
mountain face, though its base seemed more than a mile away. The rest of
L.A. was faraway and silent.

   "It's all set," said Sarah. "The service elevator's unlocked. That goes
straight to the sixtieth floor. Here." She held the bundle out to Ralph. "Put
this on."

  He shook it out and saw that it was a pair of dark-colored coveralls.
ZENITH JANITORIAL SERVICE was lettered on the back.

   "Where's Gunther?" said Mendel.

   "There was a note on his door," said Sarah. "He'll be here in a little bit."

   Ralph fastened the last button on the coveralls, then shook his pants leg
farther down inside them. He listened to Spencer's instructions, then,
without saying anything—all his muscles felt tight but somehow good—he
stepped out into the lot's blue illumination and headed for the tower.

                                      ***

   "Hey, this is a broom closet." Ralph released the switch on the bottom
of the device and waited for Spencer to answer. He had been ignored by
the real janitors on his way up to this level and had had no trouble finding
the right door. Now he stood in the little room's darkness, surrounded by
faintly odorous mops and cleaning compounds. His shin hit a metal
bucket on wheels and something inside it clattered.

   The device he carried in his hands snarled, then a tinny version of
Spencer's voice emerged. "… course it's a broom closet. Here it's a broom
closet. Stop wasting time."

   Ralph squatted down and balanced the device on his knee like a tray.
He grasped the two coils of wire in his hands and twisted the knob in the
center with one finger and thumb. He felt a tiny sensation he recognized
from the times at the base's line shack, and the space became filled with a
dim fluorescent light.

   Setting the device on the floor—carpeted now instead of bare
cement—he looked around. The room was the same size but the mops and
cleaning supplies were gone. In their place was only a small panel jutting
out from one wall, with a metal chair in front of it.

   He picked up the device and sat down in the chair with it in his lap.
"Okay," he said, thumbing the switch on the bottom. "Here it is."
Somewhere, he thought, a computer is dreaming all this. The idea
seemed to chill the room.
  Spencer's voice crackled into the silence. "All right. Give me the layout."

  Carefully, starting from one corner of the panel, Ralph described the
controls. When he was done he sat back and waited.

   After several minutes, Spencer spoke again. "Most of those dials are
dummies," came the voice from the flat metal box. "Some of them are
alarm triggers. Here's the real ones you'll have to adjust. Count over three
from the top right-hand corner. The second red one. Turn it…"

   The directions went on for some time. Between the turning of knobs on
the panel and other adjustments, there was no time to think. Finally,
Spencer's instructions ceased and Ralph sat back in the chair, lifting his
hands from the panel.

   "Looks good," said Spencer. "Our tap on their computer shows the
unlocking process nearly completed without any slips. Two last
adjustments, though. These two knobs are spring-loaded, so you'll have to
hold them in the positions I give you until the Master Historical Program
has finished printing out."

   Ralph found the knobs described and turned them against the slight
resistance of the springs. He looked up and saw that a tiny red light at the
top of the panel had blinked on.

   "That's it. Perfect." Behind Spencer's voice could be heard a mechanical
chattering, like a rapid typewriter. "The printout's started. This is going to
take a little while so just relax and keep those knobs in that position." The
voice clicked off, leaving Ralph in silence.

   After a few seconds, the bridge of his nose started to itch but he
ignored it. I wonder if Senator Muehlenfeldt ever comes here. An image
came into his mind of the old man—on television and in the newspapers
the tangled eyebrows were like snow on a weathered cliff-face—bent over
the control panel as though it were some kind of altar. Maybe, thought
Ralph. Who knows what somebody with all that money does? Spencer
might even be right about him. Who could know?

   The red light continued to glow as more time passed. His arms began
to ache from being held in one position for so long. In the van—hidden in a
dark corner of a parking lot in the real world—the members of the Alpha
Fraction were right now huddled around some piece of equipment,
reading the printout as it extruded and coiled on the floor. A secret history
was passing through him, as unreadable as his heartbeat. First thing, he
thought, when I get out of here, is to get my hands on that printout.

   The light went out, its red facets dying into black. Ralph held the knobs
in position, waiting for Spencer's voice. The device resting in his lap
remained silent. He glanced down at it, feeling a slow crawl of seconds
across his back. A suspicion of something having gone wrong coiled
around him and tightened.

   He jerked his hands from the knobs on the panel and pressed the
switch on the device's bottom. "Spencer?" The box was still silent when he
released the switch. "Are you there?" he called, pressing it again.

   There was no answer. The chair fell over as he pushed away from the
panel and stood up. He grasped the device's two wire loops and twisted
the dial. A metal bucket slammed into a row of mops in the darkness,
knocking one over and striking Ralph on the shoulder.

   Carrying the device in one hand, he closed the broom closet door
behind him and ran down the corridor to the service elevator. The
unmarked doors flicked past the periphery of his sight. Panting, he
pressed the button and heard the faint whine of the pulleys bringing the
elevator to him.

   The doors finally drew open, revealing one of the squadron of real
janitors, resting his weight on the chrome handles of a floor-buffer. The
man glanced at Ralph as he scrambled on, then yawned and looked away.

   At the ground floor, Ralph squeezed through the elevator doors as soon
as they were partially open, and ran across the building's loading dock
towards the rear exit. "Hey!" Alarmed, the janitor with the buffer called
after him. "What's going on?"

   Under the harsh blue lights the lot stretched forever. He finally sighted
the van's shape, hidden in the lot's unlit corner, and ran toward it.

   Gasping for breath, he pulled open the door on the driver's side. A wave
of relief coursed over him. "What the—" he said, almost laughing. Mendel
was stretched out on the seat, asleep. "You're sure taking this easy." He
reached down and shook the short man's shoulder. The body rolled over
and fell to the van's floor, the head lolling against the accelerator and
brake pedals. The seat was shiny with blood.

    Ralph backed away, clutching the device in his sweating hands. He
forced himself to walk to the rear of the van and to pull the doors open.
Spencer's body couldn't be seen. A wadded mound of paper was
smoldering into ashes between the banks of electronics. The interior was
filled with smoke.

   Gunther, he thought dully. Sarah was right about him. He found out
somehow, or something else happened to make him snap. And now
they're all dead. Spencer and Mendel and Sarah—

   Something moved inside the van. He peered into the smoke and saw a
man's vague outline. Was he holding something out to him? Suddenly,
Ralph fell back as a flash of light appeared in the obscured hand, followed
by a muffled pop. The window in one of the doors shattered around a
bullet hole.

   Raising himself from the asphalt, he looked up and recognized the
figure standing above him. Gunther.

  The hand with the gun pointed down at him. His heart stopped for a
moment, then he reached up, grasped the van's door and swung it towards
Gunther. The edge of it caught the gun and sent it clattering into the
darkness beyond the van.

   He was running across the lot before his mind was functioning again.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Gunther's silhouette separate from the
outline of the van and start after him. He realized he still had the device
gripped in one hand. The image filled his mind of a place where he'd be
safe. For a moment, at least.

   The service elevator was still open on the ground floor. As he punched
the button inside and the doors slid shut, he saw Gunther run onto the
loading dock. Then the elevator jerked upwards.

   Ralph leaned against the side of the elevator. His lungs burned with
each breath. He considered trying to elude Gunther in the building, then
making it out into the street. No, he decided, If I can get into the broom
closet and into the field I can wait until morning. Chances will be better
when the building's full of people. The elevator rattled upwards in its
shaft, each floor falling slowly past.
   Finally the doors pulled open and he stepped out into the corridor. A
sound froze him. Somewhere on the floor, one of the passenger elevators
was closing. He ran, turned the corner, and saw Gunther hurtling toward
him from the other end of the corridor. The broom closet was between
them. Cradling the device to his chest, Ralph ran for the door.

   He made it into the dark space but before he could close the door,
Gunther had pulled it away from him. The man's weight toppled him
backwards against the mops. As the enormous hands circled his throat, he
grasped the device's wire loops and twisted the knob.

    Breath came again, along with the cool fluorescent light. His ears were
filled with a wailing, siren-like noise. He stood up but the noise didn't
end. The alarm's been tripped, he realized. They'll find me if I stay here.
Something hard seemed to grow inside him, swelling in his chest. He
stepped backward against the wall of the small room, tightened his grip
on the device's wire loops and turned the dial.

   Gunther was still in the broom closet, waiting, his hands spread and
tensed. He started to turn as he felt Ralph's presence behind him, but then
staggered as the flat metal box struck the side of his head. Ralph swung
the device again and Gunther fell heavily to the floor of the closet. The
device dropped to the concrete as Ralph's hands started to tremble. He
forced a breath and ran out to the corridor and toward the elevator.

   Several blocks away from the Muehlenfeldt Center, he found a phone
booth and called a taxi. As he stripped off the janitor coveralls he saw that
the front of them was stained with blood. That's from the van, he thought
vaguely—his emotions were burnt out from exhaustion. He left the
coveralls in a trash can outside the booth.

  "You look like you've really been through it," said the taxi driver as
Ralph climbed into the back seat.

  "Yeah." He reached up and kneaded the side of his face.

  "Must've been some party. Hey, let me know if you're going to be sick
and I'll pull over to the curb, okay?"

   At the downtown bus terminal, he got out and paid the driver. A few of
the people inside the brightly lit building glanced at him as they stood or
sat beside their luggage. The automatic doors swung open as he
approached them and he hurried toward the ticket counter.

   A few moments later, he sat in the building's lobby, waiting. He leaned
forward and studied the ticket, though he had already memorized
everything on it. Norden, he thought, and then back to the base. Maybe
that'll be the last place they'll look for me. Maybe there'll be enough time
to figure out what to do. But L.A.'s not safe any longer. He leaned back
against the bench, a hollow feeling growing inside him. No place would be
safe again.



             PART THREE
         The Base And Beyond
                          CHAPTER 11
   The sun came up as the bus crossed the desert. Ralph awoke from fitful
sleep—dreams of more fangs, sliding in the sockets of armored jaws—and
saw the red light staining the earth. Blood, he thought. A residue of fear
and nausea lingered in his stomach.

   Nothing had become clarified in his mind by the time the bus pulled
into Norden. He had no plans other than getting more sleep, letting the
fatigue poisons drain away and seep into the carpet in his apartment on
the base. The door of the bus hissed shut behind him as he stood on the
sidewalk. The proprietor of the town's miniscule grocery store glanced at
him, then continued drawing up the store's window shades.

    On the path that led to the base, a lizard scurried away from him and
disappeared into the rocks at one side. Ralph wondered if the two bright
little eyes were watching him from some dark space as he passed. And
who else is watching me right now? The thought chilled him despite the
morning's growing heat, until he forced it farther back into his mind. A
little time's all I need, he thought. To figure out what to do next.

   The town had long disappeared behind the hills' sand and scruffy
brush. A few more yards and the buildings of the Opwatch base appeared
inside the encircling fence, square and almost featureless, the same color
as the dunes beyond them. The sun bounced off the blank walls with such
intensity that he lowered his eyes and walked toward them with his head
bent, as though through a storm.

   He stepped through the unguarded gate and trudged towards the Rec
hall, passing between the other buildings as they slowly sucked up their
own shadows. The familiar scent of the Rec hall's air-conditioned interior
hit him in the face like a silent blow. The door of dark glass swung shut
behind him. Another copy of the L.A. Times was spread out on the table.
Goodell raised his eyes from behind the sports section. Farther down the
hall Kathy was fumbling her hand around inside her mailbox. Suddenly he
felt even more tired than before he had come in, his fatigue now extending
above him like the sides of a deep well. Right down here at the bottom, he
thought. Where nothing ever changes. This is better than L.A.?

   The chair across from Goodell was empty. It sighed as Ralph lowered
himself into it. Idly, he leaned forward and pulled part of the newspaper
toward himself. It was open to the editorial page. The first one read
XIMENTO—Was It Worth It?

  Goodell lowered the section he was holding. "Back kind of early, aren't
you?" he said. "I thought you were taking a whole week off."

   Without looking up, Ralph nodded. "There wasn't anything to do.
Really." He sensed Kathy standing behind his chair but didn't turn
around.

  "I thought it was kind of quick," she said. "For you to hear about it and
come back to see. It only happened last night."

 He twisted around and looked up into her placid expression. "It?
What's it? What happened last night?"

  "You haven't heard yet?" said Goodell.

  "What?" He felt a spasm of irritation. They were both grinning.

  "You'll see." Kathy giggled.

  "You must not have gone up to your apartment yet," said Goodell.
"You'll see it when you get there."

  Their amusement at his ignorance was too much for his exhausted and
frayed temper. He got up and strode out of the Rec hall without saying
anything.

   As he crossed the grounds to the apartment buildings, a current of fear
rose and diluted his anger. Something that happened last night? he
wondered. While I was—back there in L.A.?

   He unlocked the door to his apartment, pushed it open, and peered into
the dim space. Nothing seemed different. He stepped inside slowly. The
air was stale, and a thin film of dust had fallen on everything during the
few days he'd been gone. The window, he thought. That must be what
they meant. He crossed the front room to the sliding door and pulled the
curtain aside. Seconds passed before what was out there translated from
his senses to his mind. Then he felt something—a universe?—drop
sickeningly away from his feet.

   As he crossed the base by the downward slope of the desert behind the
apartment buildings, it had been hidden from him. He had seen it once
before in a magazine article but it was much bigger than he could have
guessed from the flat photographs of it.

   An enormous jetliner, like a horizontal skyscraper, sat poised in the
level area behind the base. The space was too small for it—one high dune
at the edge actually touched the tip of one wing. Its polished silver surface
reflected the sun like a mirror. But even through the dazzling glare, the
precise black lettering on the tail section could be read, boldly proclaiming
the name of its owner and his international
headquarters—MUEHLENFELDT.

   Ralph backed away from the glass, his heart accelerating. Hearing
somebody pass by the apartment's open door, he spun around, ran out
into the corridor, and recognized the figure heading away from him.
"Glogolt!" he called. "Hey, come here!"

  The fat watcher stopped, turned around, and ambled back to him.
"What's the matter?" he said.

   Ralph pointed towards the sliding door and the apparition visible
through it. "What's that thing doing here?" he demanded.

   "I don't know," mumbled the other. "It just kinda dropped out of the
sky late last night. When we got off our shift there it was. They gave us
orders not to go out and bother them. Okay by me." He resumed his slow
progress down the corridor.

   I know why it's here, thought Ralph. He went back into the apartment
and stared with a bitter dismay at the silver jet. Because of me. They
know I'm here and who knows what else. He threw himself on the couch
and pressed his fists against his eyes, trying futilely to shut out the
reflected light from outside. There would be no breathing space in this
universe, no time to figure out what to do next.

   Commander Stiles surveyed the remnants of his lunch—crumbs and a
wilted lettuce leaf—then pushed his chair away from the desk. "I don't
know why he wants to see you," he said. "All I was told was to send you out
there." His complexion was strangely mottled and he didn't look up.

   Jealous, thought Ralph. The old guy's jealous because he wasn't
invited out to the jet. "All right," he said and turned to leave.

  "How do you rate. Metric?"

   He looked back and saw the base commander's face formed into a
childish scowl. "Just lucky, I guess." He headed to the building's exit.

   A resigned fatalism had gradually overtaken him, and it darkened as he
crossed the base. The brilliant noon sun battered the ground but he was
barely aware of it. Even if I just get a couple crummy little answers, he
told himself. Then I won't mind whatever they're going to do to me.

   To reach Muehlenfeldt's jet, it was necessary to go out the base's only
gate and then circle around outside the fence. He stepped off the road and
started over the yielding sand, keeping the fence a few feet from his side.
Inside it, the base buildings hulked and waited.

    The sloping ground behind the base shimmered in the heat as he stood
by the fence and looked down into the depression. When he had seen the
jet from his apartment, the enormity of it had confused his sense of
direction. He saw now that it was much farther away than he had thought.
It would take a considerable hike to reach it. He started down the slope
but lost his footing and half-slid, half-ran to the bottom.

   His shirt was clammy with sweat by the time he stood in the shade cast
by the enormous fuselage. The end of one of the jets mounted beneath the
backswept wing gaped over his head. He could see no ramps or steps
extending to the ground, only the giant wheels sunk part way in the sand.
From beneath the plane, no doors or windows were visible. "Hey!" he
shouted at the silver curve of its belly. His voice echoed from it and then
was absorbed in the desert.

   With a hissing noise an oval section slid aside and a metal stairway
extruded from the opening. Ralph backed up and watched its measured
descent until its bottom tread settled on the ground. He gripped the rail,
raised his head and peered up into the opening. No one was visible at the
top. Here goes, he thought, forcing his breath to slow. His shoes rang on
the metal steps as he climbed up.

   When he reached the top a hand grasped his elbow and pulled him off
the steps and into the plane. He turned and found himself looking into a
young, unsmiling face. The man's eyes were too small and hard. On the
sleeve of his jacket was a patch with the letters FSA. Another man with the
same eyes and patch stood a few feet away.

   "Mr. Metric?" said the first one, still gripping Ralph's elbow. Without
waiting for a reply the man propelled him farther into the jet. "The
senator's been waiting for you."

   As the man pushed him through, he stumbled over the bottom rim of a
door. His forearm tingled when the grip on his elbow was released,
allowing the blood to circulate again. The man closed the door between
himself and Ralph.

   An enormous aquarium formed a wall up to the arched ceiling of the
jet. A mottled fish as large as Ralph's head opened its ruffled fins, gaped at
him, then moved sluggishly into the tank's depths. Ralph stepped around
the end of the tank and into the vast open area on the other side.

   The high-backed chair swivelled around. He recognized its occupant
from news pictures of him, but, like those of the jetliner, they hadn't done
the figure justice.

   "Come in, Mr. Metric." Senator Muehlenfeldt formed a cage with his
long, age-browned fingers. "Seat yourself."

  Warily studying the seamed face with its wings of snow-white hair
above the eyes, Ralph pulled a smaller chair away from the desk. He sank
back into its padding without breaking his silence or his gaze.

   "You look rather worried." The senator smiled. "Is there something
troubling you?"

   Ralph shifted in his chair. "Maybe I'm a little paranoid," he said. "After
what happened in L.A." It didn't sound as ironic as he had intended it to
sound.

   "That was all most unfortunate. I really only wanted a little information
from Gunther Ortiz. The only way to get it was for my psych-technicians
to induce a memory flashback from his army experiences, and to identify
the Alpha Fraction in his mind with his former enemies. No one, though,
was prepared for the violence of the associations he had with that
material. He broke loose and got away from us, with the results you saw.
I'm very sorry about it all."

  "I bet." Ralph pressed his fingers into the thick upholstery of the chair's
arms.

   "Mr. Metric." The world-famous head moved sadly from side to side. "I
sense a great deal of hostility here. And it's needless." He pushed himself
up from the chair. "Perhaps someone else can put your mind to rest. Come
over here."

   The senator led him to a curtain, heavy with an intricate brocade, that
was suspended from a curved track on the plane's ceiling. "Still asleep?"
said Muehlenfeldt, pulling the curtain aside. "No, I didn't think you would
be."

   He stood beside the senator without speaking as he gazed at Sarah. She
was half-reclining on a small couch, one arm resting along its back. From
a circular window she turned her face to them. An elegant dress of some
glittery black stuff extended to her ankles, but left her tanned shoulders
bare.

    "Sarah's my daughter, you know," said Muehlenfeldt. "Since she was a
little girl, she's been a great one for secrets."

   Her eyes met Ralph's, but no expression came into her face. She looks
rich, he thought, feeling again the bitter sense of betrayal. Now that she's
in her proper environment.
   The brocaded curtain moved along its overhead track, cutting the little
space off from the rest again. Muehlenfeldt had withdrawn, leaving the
two of them. Sarah drew her legs up so that Ralph could sit down on the
end of the couch. When he had settled onto the cushion, he leaned forward
with his arms on his knees and saw a long-stemmed wine glass that had
fallen over and made a wet blot on the carpet. Sarah's face had the partly
hooded eyes of a joyless, infrequent drinker.

   "I know what you're thinking," she announced flatly.

   He looked over at her but said nothing.

   "You think I fingered the Alpha Fraction. Got them all killed. You think
I was working for my father all along."

   For a few seconds he watched her. "Yeah," he said at last.

   "Forget it," she said. "He had us bugged all the time. Didn't even need
anybody on the inside." She tilted her head, letting her hair fall across the
top of the couch. "Believe that?"

    "Maybe." Who knows, he thought. Maybe it's to the point now where
it doesn't even matter. "Is he really your father?"

   "I don't know. I'm not that wise a child."

   "Come on," said Ralph. "Is he?"

   She sighed. Her bare shoulders raised in a tired shrug. "Spencer used to
tell me all those ideas of his, too. They might be true. I never knew my
father very well. No rich kid ever does. If a being from another star took
his place, I couldn't tell you."

  Ralph nodded, wondering if the difference between the man and other
men was due to the amounts of money and power he commanded, or to
something even more alien than that. A part of himself, he knew, was
watching Sarah, looking for that same difference in her.

   "I just don't know." She sounded tired. "I was just about to a place
where I thought I'd gotten away. From all this." She lifted a hand to
indicate the jet's interior. "That's why I left, went to L.A. in the first place,
so long ago; even though I knew I could never make it into anybody else's
world. At best I could be free of any connections with here." Her voice
grew faint as she fell into some private reverie. "Billions of dollars and
light-years away…"

   He turned, leaned across the couch, and brought his hands to each side
of her head. Her eyes stayed open as he kissed her, in a silver jet in the
desert bright with light.

  Then he let go of her, stood up, and drew aside the curtain enough to
pass into the larger area. A dizzying confusion rolled through him. I still
can't tell, he thought. Maybe everybody's from some other star.

   "Ralph." From some direction Muehlenfeldt appeared and put his arm
around Ralph's shoulder. The world-famous face of power and authority
smiled pleasantly into his. "It was pure good luck that my men were able
to get her out of there before that madman showed up and killed the
others. Things aren't working out the way I want them to. But you can
help. You know what I'm talking about."

   "No." Ralph shook his head. "I don't."

   "That's not necessary." Muehlenfeldt steered him past the dark leather
chairs. "There's time for you to think about it. Then, when you're ready to
give me the info—well, I'm right here. Waiting for you."

   "I don't know what you're talking about." An eerie perception of words
dissolving free of their meanings floated over him. The senator let go of
him, a door opened, one of the men—guards?—drew him away.

   A few moments later, he was standing on the sand beneath the jetliner,
watching the metal steps glide back up into the glistening belly. A hard
rock of anger fell through him. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
he shouted at the closing door.


                           CHAPTER 12
   Through the apartment window the bright desert stars were visible.
Ralph sat up on the couch in the front room and rubbed his taut face.
Sleep had eluded him for hours.

   Maybe she's telling the truth, he thought again. Maybe she didn't
betray the Alpha Fraction. Just a poor little rich girl, playing at
revolutionary. Just to get back at her father. Only he turned out to be
bigger and more dangerous than she could've guessed. He sorted through
his fragmented thoughts again, wondering what sort of picture they would
reveal if he could ever put them together in the right way. The senator, the
jet, everything that had already happened—it all weaved in and out of his
mind. He pressed his fingers to the corners of his eyes and wondered what
time it was.

   The room's silence dissolved with the ringing of a telephone. For a
moment he didn't even recognize the sound. After several rings he stood
up and went into the kitchen. He lifted the receiver from its mounting on
the wall beside the refrigerator. "'Hello?" he said into it.

   "Ralph—" The voice jumped into his ear, taut beneath an overlay of
static. "Hey, is that you?"

   He closed his eyes and felt the room sway a little. "No," he murmured.
"You're dead. I can't take any more stuff like this." It was Spencer's voice
on the other end of the line.

   "No, I made it." Spencer's words came in a rush. "I got away from
Gunther. But there's somebody else after me now. Must be some of
Muehlenfeldt's people, about seven or eight of 'em. I've been running all
this time. Don't know how much longer—" He broke off, his voice replaced
for a moment by the sound of deep, rapid breathing. "You've got to listen,"
he spoke again. "They'll find me any minute. It's up to you. The Master
Historical Program—I read it as it was printed out. After you unlocked it."

   Ralph's spine went rigid. "Slow down," he said, pressing the phone
tighter to his ear. "I can't understand you, you're talking so fast."

   "I can't slow down." Spencer's voice wavered, as though he were about
to break into tears. "I've been running all day and they're gonna find me
any minute."

   "The program." Ralph's own voice was tight with urgency. "What was
in it?"

  The sound of a few more ragged breaths came from the receiver.
"Operation Dreamwatch," he spoke at last, his voice only a fraction slower
and more controlled. "It's like the Manhattan Project of 1942. You know,
the first nuclear pile? Zip rods—"

   The phone went silent for a few seconds, then clicked sharply and began
an electronic buzz in his ear. "Spencer?" he shouted into the whining
phone, but knew already there would be no answer.

   He threw the receiver against the wall. It struck and dangled on the end
of its cord, still sounding its faint idiot note. He glared at it, at the wall
behind, at everything with a growing anger. This universe was still bent on
hiding its secrets from him.

   That does it, he thought disgustedly. He strode into the front room and
picked up his jacket. I've got to talk to Sarah. Maybe she knows more—
even just a little bit more—that I have to know.

                                      ***

   Between the moon and the desert three jets left trails into the south.
The red lines healed and faded among the stars. Ralph felt like a ghost as
he passed the silent line shack. The watchers, he calculated, were halfway
through their shift, wandering around bored on the dreamfield.

   And here I am, he thought, heading for the gate. Not bored, at least. Is
that an improvement?

   The dunes were a luminous blue in the moonlight. He followed the
double trail of his previous footsteps out to Muehlenfeldt's jetliner. Only
when he was standing in the darkness beneath it, looking up at the tightly
sealed metal flank, did he think, Now what? The thought of throwing
pebbles up at the circular windows struck him as stupid, but he had no
other idea. One of the scruffy bushes behind him rustled.

   Before he could turn around, he was on his stomach, his face pressed
into the sand. Someone's knees were heavy on his back. Both his arms
were brought up behind him and he was jerked painfully to his feet.
Twisting his head around, he could see over his shoulder the face of one of
Muehlenfeldt's guards. The malice underneath had split open the surface
with a grin.

  "Whatcha looking for?" the guard shouted in Ralph's ear. "Looking for
something? Huh?" He pulled the captive arms even farther up. "Whatcha
snooping around for?"
  Ralph couldn't speak. The pain in his spine was making the stars go out
one by one.

  "Come on then. Jerk." The guard trotted him forward. "The senator
wants to talk to you."

   Another guard stepped out from behind one of the massive wheels. He
pressed a button on a stubby-antennaed box in one hand. The jet's stairs
began their hissing descent.

   Muehlenfeldt was alone in the jet, or at least there was no sign of Sarah.
The guards dropped Ralph in the middle of a curved section of sofa. He
brought his arm out from where it had been twisted behind him, and felt
the blood start to seep back into it. In a fluorescent blue dressing gown
with a large red M embroidered on the front, Muehlenfeldt paced,
scowling, back and forth in front of him. That looks ridiculous, thought
Ralph, surprising himself with his calm. Like a cartoon of the world's
richest man.

  "All right, Metric," growled the senator, pointing a leathery finger at
Ralph. "I'm not fooling around any more. You'd better open up pretty
damn quick."

   Ralph massaged his aching arm. "I don't know whatever it is you think
I'm supposed to be able to tell you."

  "Cut out the games. I want all the details, all the names, everything you
know about the Beta group."

  Puzzled, Ralph frowned. "You mean the Alpha Fraction, don't you?"

  The bony hand curled into a fist a few inches from Ralph's nose. "Cut
out the games!" shouted Muehlenfeldt. "Don't try to pretend you don't
know what I'm talking about! Beta! Beta! Beta!"

   Pushing himself back into the sofa's upholstery, Ralph looked into the
senator's eyes. It didn't matter whether he was from another star or
not—another type of alienness blazed in the lean face. Insane, thought
Ralph. The man's crazier than—

  "All right?" said Muehlenfeldt, his voice softer but still trembling with
suppressed rage. "There's no point in trying to fool me. I know all about
it."

  "Great," muttered Ralph. A weary disgust pushed aside his
apprehension for a moment. "Why don't you tell me about it, then?"

  "Get him out of here." As Ralph was jerked up from the couch
Muehlenfeldt slapped the guard on the side of the head. "Careful!
Remember what happened to the last one!"

   In a few seconds the guard pushed Ralph from the bottom of the jet's
stairs. He stumbled forward, landing on his hands and knees in the sand.
Rolling over on his back, he watched the guard's scowling face disappear
as the ramp retracted into the silver fuselage. The hissing stopped and the
silence of the night desert crept up around him.

   He got to his feet and walked out from beneath the wing. His hands
looked so pale and inhuman in the moonlight he thrust them in his jacket
pockets and trudged over the sand.

   "Ralph." Sarah's voice.

   For a moment he thought some residue of the senator's madness had
twisted his hearing. Then he saw her standing on the little trail, waiting
for him. Some part of the spectrum was missing, the part that had made
her dress sparkle when he had seen her inside the jet. Now the fabric
appeared as a featureless black against her skin.

  "What are you doing out here?" he said. "I thought your father would've
kept you locked up."

   She shrugged, listless. "Why should he? Where's to go?"

   "Anywhere. Away from him."

   "No." She reached out and took his hand. "All that money is very
comfortable. I know. It even fills up a little bit of the hole left by the Alpha
Fraction."

   "What's this other thing he was talking about? The Beta group?"

  "Who knows? He's insane." She brought her hand up and held Ralph's
against her shoulder. "Something he dreamed up."
   Of course, he thought. We're all operating out of them now. "Now
what," he murmured. The words were sucked lifeless by the empty spaces
around them.

   Sarah let go of his hand and turned away. Silently, her figure withdrew
into the darkness surrounding the jetliner.

   It's all dreamfields, he thought. The dunes wheeled around him as he
looked for the trail he had been following. No difference between this and
any other one. And the worst is to know you're lost on them.

                                     ***

    He lay down on the sofa in darkness. As soon as he closed his eyes, or so
it seemed, he was driving down a freeway in his parents' old Ford. Beside
him sat Michael Stimmitz with one arm draped casually out the side
window. "I suppose you're pretty mad at me," said Stimmitz. "For getting
you into all this."

   "No, it's all right. Really." Ralph had the sensation that the car was
going very fast, faster than he'd ever gone in anything, yet everything
beyond the windshield was a featureless gray haze. This is all a dream,
anyway, he thought. A weary hollowness slid through his muscles, It
doesn't matter.

   "Ah, that's the trouble with you, Ralph." Stimmitz shook his head.
"That's always been the trouble with you. You just don't get mad at things,
do you? If you did, they'd go better for you."

   "Maybe." He didn't feel like arguing. Patiently he waited for the dream
to end and for comfortable unconsciousness to slip over him again.
"You're a fine one to talk about things going better. You're dead."

   Michael Stimmitz shrugged. "That's not important. You're still
dreaming about me, aren't you? I must've made some impression on the
universe, or part of it at least, if people are still thinking about me when
I'm gone. Right? I mean, your memory is evidence that I existed once. But
you, Ralph—boy, I just don't know." The dream image of Stimmitz
kneaded his forehead with one hand. "It's going to be one of those
names-written-in-water deals for you if you don't shape up pretty soon."

  "Come on. Give me some slack, will you?" Ralph felt a point of resentful
misery penetrate his apathy. "I'm going through enough crap right now
without you coming back from the grave and bitching at me."

   "I'm only doing it for your own good, Ralph. You don't want to die and
just be forgotten, do you? No accomplishments?" Stimmitz's voice
dropped in volume and pitch as he leaned closer. "Take a look at what's in
the back seat."

   "I don't want to," sulked Ralph. "You've probably got something
disgusting back there. I don't want to see it, whatever it is."

   "Go on," coaxed Stimmitz. "Take a look. What's the harm? Maybe you'll
even wake up."

    Slowly, Ralph turned his head, his hands still gripping the wheel. Sarah
lay curled up on the back seat, her head resting on her bare arm. Her hair
spilled down to the floor. She's dead, thought Ralph. Or at least here she
is.

   Her skin was white and cold-looking. A tiny drop of red glistened in the
corner of her mouth, far below the bruised eyelids.

   "What the hell's that for?" said Ralph angrily. He swung around and
leaned over the steering wheel, looking for an offramp. "How do I get off
this damn thing," he muttered.

   "There's more to be considered than just yourself." Stimmitz gestured
with one of his long-fingered hands.

   "Thanks a lot. If you're trying to be so goddamn helpful why don't you
tell me what's going on with Muehlenfeldt and all the rest of that stuff?"

  "Come on, Ralph. I'm just a product of your subconscious. I can't tell
you anything you don't already know."

    "What's the point, then. What's the damn point." Who needs this, he
thought. He turned to face Stimmitz with more angry words forming on
his tongue. But instead of Stimmitz, the slithergadee swelled and clattered
its scales as it moved across the seat toward him, its jaws gaping hot and
wide. The space outside the car grew dark and Ralph could feel the car
falling, falling.
                                     ***

   He woke up on the couch, surrounded by the dark apartment. Through
the window he could see the cold stars still glittering over the desert. What
time is it? he wondered. Everything seemed very still, the world in
abeyance.

   In his stocking feet he padded to the kitchen and looked at the little
clock on top of the stove. Three a.m. A dark hour, he thought. So quiet.

   Back in the living room, he gazed out the sliding glass door at the base
and the desert. Nothing moved out there. In the distance, blue moonlight
slid over the flanks of Muehlenfeldt's jet. The pale luminescence on the
ground had large, jagged black rips in it, the shadows of buildings and
dunes and other objects, as the moon ebbed closer to the horizon.

   The details of his dreams were fading beyond recall, but had left him
with a certain melancholy. Sunlight might have dissipated it, but at this
hour, Ralph knew, it was a true vision, a glimpse of dark eternity. This is
the way it is underneath everything else.

   He felt himself alone on the earth. The social construct of time had
stopped, along with light and warmth. The dark hours would last forever.
Whatever point of conspiracy and violence his life had been hurtling
toward still waited in the future. But this is worse. This is death and
knowing you're dead. He turned from the window, sat on the couch and
pulled on his shoes. From the dark apartment he stepped into the dimly lit
corridor and drew the door shut behind him.

   The building was silent. Ralph passed by the closed doors, feeling like
his own ghost. AH the familiar components of his life were changed
somehow, as though they were never meant to be seen at this hour.
Everyone else, he thought, is asleep or holding down a shift on the
dreamfield. Far away from here, in either case. He entered the stairwell
at the far end of the corridor and started down.

   Outside, the concrete paths were like corroded silver in the partial
light. He walked slowly between the buildings, not knowing for whom or
what he was looking. This kind of motion is becoming a habit with me.

   A small asphalt lot at the corner of one of the apartment buildings held
the dozen or so cars that belonged to people on the base. A sad collection,
mostly—aged and not well taken care of. Neglect and time had exposed
their essential cheapness. Peeling fenders squatted over bald tires. Things
have gotten out of hand, thought Ralph with grim humor, when metal
starts decaying as fast as human beings. The dusty lenses of the cars'
headlights watched as he went by.

   A honk from one of the cars' horns startled him. He spun around on the
sidewalk and stared at the dark windshields. Wobbling loosely at the end
of a sleeve, a pale hand emerged from a side window and beckoned to him.
"Metric," called a voice. "Hey, c'mere."

   Ralph bent forward, trying to see who was in the car. "C'mon, c'mon,''
the voice shouted again. "Up and at 'em, dream watchers." Ralph's
muscles untensed as he stepped off the sidewalk and headed toward the
car. It was Blenek the operations chief, his voice recognizable even
beneath a slight blurring of syllables. Drinking at this hour? wondered
Ralph.

  A brewery odor spilled from the car as he approached. Blenek waved an
open can from his seat behind the steering wheel. "C'mon in and have a
couple." Beer slopped from the top of the can and rolled down his wrist.

   Without saying anything, Ralph circled the car and got in on the other
side. The seat was damp and a little sticky from the dregs of a couple of
empty cans that rolled and fell to the floor as he sat down. They clattered
softly against the ones already there. The cans rolled under Ralph's feet as
he pushed his legs into the space beneath the dashboard.

  Blenek tore a full one from the six-pack on the seat between them.
"Here ya go," he said with boozy friendliness.

   Ralph felt intuitively that he had nothing to fear from Blenek; the man
was, like the watchers he supervised, simply used and kept in the dark by
the ones at the top. Whatever additional connections Blenek had with that
uppermost layer were of no more importance than simple instructions to
be carried out, revealing nothing of the designs behind them. Ralph knew
there was nothing sinister about the car in the unlit parking lot—just a car
with an inebriated occupant. The beer, though—Ralph pulled back and
waved it off with his hand spread wide.

   Blenek looked puzzled at Ralph's motions, then nodded wisely as he
signalled an Okay with the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. "Don't
worry, man," he said. " 'S all right. It's not that stuff they stick in
everybody's 'frigerators around here. I bought this stuff down in Norden
myself."

   Surprised, Ralph looked at him for a moment, trying to read something
behind the reddened eyes. Then he took the beer from the unsteady hand.
"Thanks." He opened it and tossed the ring and tab onto the car's
cluttered floor. The can's icy sweat seeped between his fingers as he tilted
his head back and swallowed.

    The bitter liquid pulsed down his throat and completed a circuit
somewhere inside him. "God, that's good." Another swallow stoked the
little fire. Exactly what I needed, thought Ralph. He was pleasantly
amazed at the potency of its effect on him. "What kind is this?"

  "Good stuff, huh?" Blenck pulled at his own can, then mumbled some
Teutonic-sounding brand name. "This isn't that pale Colorado
sugar-water all those pansy college kids and movie stars drink. This is real
beer. Put hair on your chest, as my old man used to say."

   He had never thought about Blenek having a father. Ralph sipped
meditatively at the beer. But then everybody has one. More beer
deepened this vision. And mothers. And grandparents, and old friends
they see or don't see anymore. He gazed over the rim of his beer can at
Blenek. It suddenly seemed as if the corpulent operations chief, and
everyone else in the world, had an enormous cavern he dragged around
behind him everywhere he went. He drained the can and let it slide from
his fingers. It bounced on the edge of the seat and fell with the others.

   Blenek pulled another can free and handed it to Ralph, then took the
last one for himself. The small percussive sound of the opening cans stood
out again the night's silence.

  Ralph wiped his damp upper lip with the back of his hand. "So you
know about that stuff, huh? That beer they sneak into your kitchen when
you're not around?"

   "Oh, sure." Beer gurgled inside the can as Blenek gestured with it.
"Suspected somebody was screwin' around a long time ago. Never caught
'em, though. They're pretty sneaky about it."

  "Ever tell anybody about what you knew was going on?"
  "Naw. I figured, what'd be the point? The only ones who could do
something about it are probably the ones doing it in the first place. You
know—the general and his staff assistants." Blenek tilted the can into his
mouth for several seconds, then lowered it.

   "What about the other watchers?" said Ralph. "Why didn't you tell
them?"

  "Tell them?" Blenek guffawed into his beer can. "Most of 'em already
know! Jeez, you'd have to be really pretty dumb not to know about it. I
mean, free beer showing up in your fridge is pretty obvious."

    "Oh? Yeah, I guess maybe it is." More beer slid into his stomach, but
instead of connecting with his nervous system and lighting things up the
way the first can had done, this one produced a slight fog around his
mind. Pretty strong stuff, he thought, whatever it is. He tilted the last of
it out and dropped the empty can with the rest.

   "How come—" He groped for words. "How come nobody ever did
anything about it, though? I mean, why didn't they stop drinking it, at
least?"

  "Stop drinking it?" Blenek goggled at him from across the car seat.
"What the hell for?"

   "Well, there's something wrong with it, isn't there? They put something
in it, don't they?"

    "Whaat?" Slowly, Blenck's head moved from side to side. "Wow, Metric,
you sure got some wild ideas. You mean, like putting saltpeter in
prisoners' food or something? That's, uh, pretty crazy if you ask me. It's
just ordinary beer they put in the 'frigerators. There's nothing wrong with
it. Just beer, is all."

  Ralph frowned as he watched the other lean over the back of the seat
and snag another six-pack. There was most of a case sitting on the car's
back seat. "How would you know?" he said at last.

   "Man, I've drunk plenty of beer in my lifetime. If anybody added
anything to it, I'd know. Believe me." With a flourish he ripped the tab
from another can. "Most of the watchers prob'ly figure that if the people
who run this place want to stock free beer in the fridge, it's fine with them.
What's to complain about? Kind of like a fringe benefit, you know? Me, I
just like a better kind of beer. What's wrong with that?"

   "Nothing, I guess. Wait a minute. No—nothing." Ralph lifted his hand
to rub his forehead and discovered he had a half-full can of beer in it and
no memory of how it got there. The dots of moisture on the smooth
cylinder glinted like jewels in the moonlight that came through the
windshield. In two gulps he had drained the can. He had never drunk beer
this fast before, but now it just seemed to fall without effort into a hole
inside himself. It must be the stress, he told himself. The desert's horizon
beyond the base tilted for a few seconds, then settled down.

  " 'Nother one?" Blenek's can-laden hand came into view.

   Ralph took it and tugged it open. The pleasantly sour foam spilled
across his tongue. He leaned back into the seat and closed his eyes. There
was no point, he decided, in telling Blenek all that happened, and was still
happening. That was all in another universe, far from this cozy alcoholic
communion. Respite, he thought vaguely. Time out. He had read once of
how the soldiers in the trenches of World War 1 had sung and jollied
around between charges at the enemy a few hundred yards away. Now he
understood that. Now he felt free to savor this little piece of time, no
matter what terrors he had already gone through and what even worse
ones still lay ahead.

   The empty cans were two layers deep on the car's floor when Blenek
held up an unsteady finger. "Lemme show you somethin'." He tilted in
front of Ralph and opened the glove compartment.

   "Wha's that?" said Ralph thickly. Filling the compartment was a
rectangular piece of electronic equipment with dials and switches
studding its front panel. A momentary flash of paranoia bubbled inside
him.

   "CB." said Blenek. "Citizen's Band radio. Big fad for 'em a while back.
Lots of people were stickin' 'em in their cars, chatting back and forth with
each other as they drove along. Now it's back to mostly truckers and a few
lonely old geezers like me."

   A pang of shame hit Ralph, partially sobering him. Who could tell what
private sorrow Blenek was drowning out here in the darkness all these
nights?
   Blenek switched on the equipment and fiddled clumsily with the now
softly glowing dials. Voices crackled out of a speaker somewhere on the
dash. Disembodied truck-drivers warned each other about speed traps on
the highways. A couple of kids swapped details about their radio
equipment—much talk of diodes and transistors. Other voices came and
went, flying through the dark air. Ralph listened and watched through
half-shut eyes. Too much of that damn beer, he thought dimly.

   "Here." Blenek had pulled a microphone on a coiled cable from the
glove compartment. "Say something. See if anybody wants to talk to you."

   He took the mike, hesitated for a moment, then pressed the button on
the side. "Does anybody—" He spoke slowly and carefully. "Does anybody
out there know what's going on? Anybody? Anywhere?"

  "What a weird question," mumbled Blenek from somewhere beside
him.

   No answer came. Ralph dropped the mike and looked across the seat.
Blenek had fallen asleep, his head resting against the top of the steering
wheel. With a fumbling hand Ralph switched off the radio. The glowing
dials lapsed back into darkness. A couple of empty beer cans tumbled to
the ground as he opened the door and got out. Under the stars' gaze he
reeled back to his apartment.

   After relieving his aching bladder, he made his way to the kitchen and
discovered that the stove's little clock still read three a.m. He leaned across
the cold burners and brought his ear up against the clock's face. There
were no tiny mechanical sounds. Stopped, he thought, straightening up.
Dead. He wobbled into the living room and collapsed on the couch. For a
moment he thought of Sarah and felt alone and forsaken. At last he fell
asleep and dreamed again about the slithergadee.


                           CHAPTER 13
   The sun was well up before he woke again. The familiar teeth of his
nightmares faded away. He swung his feet to the floor from the couch. His
clothes felt damp and sleazy, with the odor of stale beery sweat from the
shirt bunched up under his arms. After finding his way back from Blenek's
car he had collapsed on the couch without even taking off his shoes. But
that's over now, he told himself. That little interlude. I'm back in my own
universe again. The comforting alcohol had drained away.

   A cold shower perked up his circulation. Then he opened his bedroom
closet, threw his wadded-up civilian clothes into the corner and took one
of his Opwatch uniforms from a hanger. Just like an old skin, he thought,
pulling on the shirt. I thought I'd gotten rid of it for good.

   Half of a box of saltines was all he could find in the kitchen cupboards.
The crackers clung so tightly to the roof of his mouth that he could barely
swallow. Now what? he thought, staring out the window as his molars
ground together. If I ever had a permanent answer to that question. …

   Spencer had babbled on the phone about—what? With an effort, the
frantic words came up from Ralph's memory. The Manhattan Project.
1942. Something about that didn't seem quite right. Had it been called
something else? The first nuclear pile. Through his mind floated vague
notions of what he'd learned in some physics class in college. Hadn't they
put it together in an underground tennis court or something? He shook
his head. This, he thought, is what comes from being asleep all your life.
You never know what important stuff you're going to miss. And what,
for Pete's sake, is a "zip rod?"

    He walked into the front room and stared out the sliding glass door.
Muehlenfeldt's jet was still out there, gleaming in the sun, painful to the
eye. The senator might know what Spencer had meant on the phone. His
men in L.A. might even have pumped Spencer for information before they
killed him. So what's the point in asking me anything? thought Ralph.
Everybody around here seems to know more than I do. He crumpled the
empty saltine box in his hands, dropped it, and went back into the
bedroom to get his Opwatch jacket.

   There was no one in the Rec hall when he entered. It was still too early
for any of the watchers to be awake after their shift last night. Good thing
I'm still on vacation, he thought in a mixture of irony and relief. He
walked down the corridor to the last room, the one least used by anybody
on the base—a tiny library wtih metal shelves crammed full of
shabby-looking volumes.

    Ralph stepped into the room and ran his eyes over the faded book
spines until he located what he was looking for. One shelf held an outdated
encyclopedia set. He pulled out the M volume and started leafing through
it.
   He felt no surprise when he found that the pages had been neatly
razored out where the article on the Manhattan Project would have been.
That's real cute, he thought. Why not throw away the whole hook? Who
would have noticed? The sense of deranged ingenuity annoyed him. He
didn't even bother to open any of the other volumes.

                                    ***

   "An encyclopedia?" The shopkeeper frowned and held the sides of the
cash register drawer. "What would we carry something like that for? Don't
think we'd get much call for it. This ain't a bookstore, you know." He
fished change for a dollar from the drawer and slid it across the counter.

   "No," said Ralph, pocketing the pack of gum he'd bought in order to
start the conversation. "I mean, do you have a set at home? Where you
live?"

  "Now that's a funny thing." The man stroked his chin meditatively.
"Sure are a lot of people asking about encyclopedias lately."

  "Yeah? Who else?"

   "Oh, they said they were from some publishing company back east."
The shopkeeper nodded his head in the general direction. "They sure had
mean little eyes, though. Never can tell, I guess. Anyway, they said their
company was bringing out some new fancy type of encyclopedia, and they
were going around Norden giving people cash for their old ones. Fred
Webb—you know, the barber—he said they gave him two dollars a volume
for an old set of Globals that his kids used to do their homework with.
They're all grown up and moved out now, of course, so Fred figured he
might as well have the money for the books. There probably weren't more
than four or five sets in the whole town, and those publishing company
people most likely got 'em all. Encyclopedia paper must be getting pretty
scarce."

   Muehlenfeldt, thought Ralph. Just ahead of me. There's some kind of
info about the old Manhattan Project that he's trying to keep me from
finding out. Just like he thinks I'm keeping something secret from him.
But what?

  "Whatcha need one for, anyway?" asked the shopkeeper. "Something
you wanted to look up?"
  "Yeah." Coin by coin he picked up his change from the counter.

  "What was it? Maybe I'd know something about it."

   He smiled wearily, without hope. "I don't think so. I needed some
information about the first nuclear pile experiments."

   "The ones in 1942?" said the shopkeeper. "At the University of Chicago,
with Enrico Fermi?"

  Startled, Ralph looked at the man on the other side of the counter. "I
guess that's the one," he said slowly. "The Manhattan Project. What do yo
know about it?"

   "That's not what it was called. The code name was 'The Metallurgical
Project.' " He slapped the counter and looked pleased with himself. "I was
reading an article about it just the other day. In an old copy of the
Reader's Digest. I save all my issues—got 'em complete for, oh, some forty
years back."

   The skin on Ralph's arms and neck tensed with a small but growing
current of excitement. "Do you still have that one? Can you find it?"

   "Oh, sure. Watch the register for a minute, will you?" The shopkeeper
left the counter and headed for the stairs in back that led to the rooms
above the store. After a few moments, during which Ralph could hear
grunting and sliding noises from above, he reappeared carrying a
cardboard box. It was haphazardly filled with copies of the Reader's
Digest, the top layers of the mound threatening to slide and capsize onto
the floor.

   "Uff." The shopkeeper was red in the face as he heaved the box onto the
counter. "Here we go," he said after a moment of labored breathing. "Let's
see now…"

   Ralph leaned forward and watched the man shuffle the thick, squarish
magazines about. The covers had all faded into pastels while the edges of
the pages had darkened into a dirty brown.

   "I think it had a picture of some kind of birds on it." The shopkeeper
frowned in concentration. "Or was it two deer standing in a forest? No,
this is it. This is the one." He held the copy up between them. A cactus
blooming with yellow flowers was on its cover. The shopkeeper leafed
through it, stopped, and folded it open upon itself. "Look at that."

   He took the magazine from the shopkeeper's hands and read the
article's title. I WAS THERE—WHEN THE ATOMIC AGE WAS BORN!
His eyes quickly scanned the text but caught at nothing. "Can I borrow
this?" he said, looking up at the shopkeeper.

  "Eh, keep it." The man made a little pushing motion with his palm. "I
only save 'em because I'm too lazy to throw 'em away."

   "Hey, thanks." Gripping the magazine, Ralph turned and ran from the
store.

  When he got back to his apartment on the base he dropped onto the
couch and started to read the article. It only took a few minutes to devour.

   The article's author had been one of the scientists who had worked in
1942 to create the world's first nuclear pile—CP-1, or Chicago Pile Number
One. In typical Reader's Digest prose, he described the construction,
supervised by Enrico Fermi, of the twenty-four-foot diameter sphere from
graphite bricks and uranium metal and oxides, and the work
crews—University of Chicago graduate students—smearing their faces
with the greasy dark stuff and catching their fingers between the heavy
bricks.

   As a safety measure—Ralph leaned forward, reading the scientist's
words intently—we constructed a "zip rod." This was a wooden rod
running through the pile with strips of cadmium metal tacked to it.
Cadmium, the best of neutron sponges, would put out any atomic
conflagration that got out of hand. The rod had to he pulled out of the
pile by a rope before the nuclear reaction could begin; release the rope
and it would zip back into the pile, quenching the neutron activity.

   The article ended with Fermi and the rest going on to glory, choirs of
radiation counters clattering softly in the background, and the Atomic
Age dawning its harsh light over the world.

  So what's that got to do with anything? thought Ralph, laying the
magazine down on the couch. Its pages fluttered shut. He couldn't see any
connection between the Metallurgical Project and Operation
Dreamwatch. But why did they tear out the pages from the encyclopedia
in the Rec hall and round up the ones in Norden? He shook his head, once
again feeling weighed down with conjectures that baffled and led nowhere.

    Operation Dreamwatch had, he saw now with dismay, generated its
own darkness. Sliding over the earth the mysteries bred and multiplied:
mysteries that went unanswered, their carcinogens festering until this new
inescapable universe had the face of the dreamfield's
slithergadee—malignant and inexplicable. And we just huddle together
and cower, thought Ralph, remembering—bitterly—the night Michael
Stimmitz had died. But nothing will ever come to lift us out of this place.

   He got up, went into the bedroom and pulled open one of the bureau
drawers. There, where he'd hidden it beneath layers of underwear and
socks, was the tape of Bach cantatas that Michael Stimmitz had left for
him. It seemed centuries ago. And I still don't know, thought Ralph, what
he was trying to tell me with it.

   In a spasm of anger he plucked the clear plastic reel from the box and
threw it against the wall. It bounced to the floor and wobbled around in
circles, spinning the mute tape out into a tangled mass.

   He inhaled deeply to calm himself but expanded the hollowness he felt
growing inside. From the bottom of the tape box, he took the square
booklet containing the notes and translations for the cantatas. There were
no more secret messages scribbled in its margins now than there had been
the first time he had looked through it. So what's the point? he thought,
closing his eyes and running his hand over the booklet's slick paper cover.

   He frowned and opened his eyes. His fingers had touched
something—or had they? Turning the booklet to the light, he watched his
hand brush across the cover, then stop at the same point he had felt
before. A slight indentation, invisible to the eyes, ran around the edges of
the capital letter "B" of Bach's name, as though
some-one—Stimmitz?—had carefully outlined it with a dry ballpoint pen
or something.

  B? thought Ralph. His hand moved down the cover, brushing across it
until his fingers felt another incised letter—an "O" in the conductor's
name.

   There were only two more letters with indented outlines, for a total of
four. So that's the message Stimmitz left, thought Ralph. There was no
need for guessing or deciphering. The four letters spelled BOMB.

   Bomb? wondered Ralph, but only for a moment. His mind sorted out
the right connections. Spencer got the two things garbled. The
Metallurgical Project—and the Manhattan District, that's what it was
called. A long-forgotten fragment of some college lecture came back to
him. The Manhattan District was the name for the group of army
engineers who constructed the first atomic bomb. The image of a
mushroom-shaped cloud blotted out his vision for a moment. Then he
could see again. Not everything was explained but enough was.

   The Thronsen Home was the closest construction to the gigantic desert
military installation, the home base of the plasma jet bombers whose
trails laced the sky every night. What if—the thoughts went through
Ralph's mind like electric currents—what if the Thronsen Home wasn't
just part of a harmless mental health program for juvenile delinquents?
What if the supposed therapy was a front for the creation of a nuclear
device powerful enough to incinerate the whole area, military bases
included? It didn't seem any less likely to Ralph than any other possible
explanation. Perhaps Muehlenfeldt was from another star. Perhaps
similar "therapy" programs had been set up for the USSR's wayward
children. China, too? Possibly. Anybody—or thing—ingenious enough to
devise a cover-up as elaborate as Operation Dreamwatch could figure out
a way to accomplish what it wanted anywhere else as well. And after the
Earth's major military bases were destroyed, would the invasion force that
Muehlenfeldt had preceded come at last?

   For a few seconds the elaborate explanation that had built itself in
Ralph's mind like an instantaneous coral reef trembled, fragile under the
weight of everyday logic. Then it solidified, hard as rock. Who cares if it's
weird? he thought. A kind of desperate hilarity washed through him. Who
cares if it sounds like science fiction? When the world becomes science
fictional, then only science fiction will explain the world. He dropped the
booklet, got his coat from the closet, and ran out of the apartment without
closing the door behind him.

   The base vehicles—two jeeps and a small truck, with OPWATCH
stencilled on their sides—were kept parked behind the administration
building. Ralph quickly looked inside each in turn, but none of the keys
were in the ignitions as he'd been hoping. He stood for a moment with his
hands braced against the door of one of the jeeps, wondering where the
keys would be kept. The base commander's office? That seemed likeliest.

   Quietly he went to the side of the building, then stooped down and
duck-walked beneath the window of the commander's office. For a while
he waited and listened, but heard no voices or shuffling of papers. He
raised himself up and peeked over the sill, hoping the commander was out
to lunch away from his desk. The office was empty as far as he could see,
the commander's chair vacant and pushed away from the desk.

   Operation Dreamwatch had certainly been cheated by whomever had
gotten the contract for the window screens. As everyone in the base
apartments knew, the wire mesh could be easily pulled loose from the
metal frames. In a few seconds Ralph had a triangular flap loose from one
corner, large enough to crawl through. He landed on his hands and feet
behind the desk. When he stood up he felt something hard and cold press
itself behind his left ear.

  "Don't move, Metric," came Commander Stiles's voice. "Or you know
what'll happen."

   Suddenly he couldn't swallow, though he wanted to very much. He
stared at the distant blank wall and closed door on the other side of the
desk, and listened to a faint roaring sound—his bloodstream—grow louder
in the room's silence.

   "I'm going to take the gun away from your head," said the commander
evenly. "Then I want you to go and sit down in the chair on the other side
of the desk. I'll be aiming at your heart."

   The cold circle of pressure against his skull ceased. Without turning to
look back, Ralph walked slowly around the desk and sat down in the
smaller chair on the other side. Then he looked up.

   The gun, a fixed point in space, didn't waver as Commander Stiles
lowered himself into his own chair. It remained outstretched in his hand,
pointing its dark metal snout at Ralph's chest. Their eyes met over the
weapon between them.

   "Metric." The commander shook his head slowly, the seams in his face
shifting in amusement. "Very irrational of you to come back here to the
base. Just as if we haven't had you under suspicion for a long time. Didn't
you think we'd keep an eye on anyone your friend Stimmitz was spending
so much time with? I watched you looking through the jeeps outside. I
even know all about your little adventures in L.A.—I was told about them
as soon as I had reported that you had shown up here. So nothing you've
done has really been very clever, has it?"

   Ralph's voice moved like a rasp through his dried throat. "No," he said.
"I guess not."

   The commander sighed. "I'm afraid Senator Muehlenfeldt has run out
of patience with you. Frankly, he's been hesitant to use, uh, harsh methods
to find out what you know, because of what happened with the other Beta
group member that was questioned. But we know what to expect now, so
the danger caused by an explosion can be limited to just yourself. The
worst that can happen—except to you, of course—is that we won't get any
info out of you at all."

   "Stiles." Ralph felt dizzy looking at the other's impassive face. "Do you
know what's going on? Do you know what they're doing here? What
they're going to do?"

   "Come, come," said the commander mildly. "Of course not. Moral
persuasion is of little use here, I'm afraid. I'm too much of a professional
to be concerned about the purpose of the whole thing. Everyone who
works for Muehlenfeldt is a professional."

   The room's contents glowed as adrenaline pumped into Ralph's blood.
He had gleaned enough from Stiles's mysterious references to formulate a
plan. "In that case," he said, leaning forward, his voice taut, "I'll just have
to set off my device right now and take you with me." He reached with
careful drama for one ear.

   The commander dropped the gun and pushed himself frantically away
from the desk. His chair toppled backward as Ralph dove head first over
the desk and collided with his chest.

   Stiles's arms scrabbled weakly at the carpet as he lay dazed and gasping
beside the overturned chair. Ralph reached back to the desk and picked
up the gun. He pointed it at the commander but the trigger didn't budge.
The older man was raising himself, up on one arm and Ralph still hadn't
found how to release the safety on the gun. He threw it by its barrel at the
commander's skull, producing a loud crack and a groan from Stiles before
he slumped back down and lay without moving.
   The keys were in the desk's top drawer. He stuffed all the sets into his
pockets and climbed back out through the torn screen. In less than a
minute he had matched one of the key sets to the ignition of one of the
jeeps and started it with a roar that did much to satisfy and quiet his
trembling limbs. He backed away from the building, then threw it into
first and headed for the base's gate. Kathy and Goodell, walking on the
path from the apartments to the Rec hall, leaped out of his way, then
watched with open mouths as the cloud of dust churned towards the
highway.


                           CHAPTER 14
   The wind blowing through the open jeep seemed to clear his thoughts
and give him a sense of purpose. Las Vegas, he said to himself. There
should be an FBI office there. Somebody who'll listen, and he able to do
something. He pressed the accelerator harder against the jeep's
floorboard. The decision was already firm within him that, no matter
what happened, he'd get Sarah away from whatever it was that claimed to
be her father.

   Miles of straight or gently curving road passed between the flanks of
the dunes on either side, glaring fiercely in the afternoon sun. He found a
pair of metal-rimmed sunglasses in the dashboard cubbyhole and put
them on. The dark lenses reduced the rearview mirror from a rectangle of
burning reflection to the visible awareness of the road piling up behind
him. There was someone following him.

   He studied the mirror, glancing at the road briefly to keep from going
off on the shoulder. The figure behind him was a motorcyclist. He could
make out the sleek black fairing that transformed the cycle into a bullet
shape, and—was he imagining it or could he really make out so much
detail?—the tinted, blank face shield of the rider's helmet as he bent low
over the handlebars.

   The distance between Ralph and his pursuer was slowly growing less,
the figure becoming perceptibly larger in the rearview mirror.

   Must be one of Muehlenfeldt's men, thought Ralph. He'll be on me
before too long. The jeep was already pushed to its limit, at a speed much
less than that of the motorcycle behind.
   Signs flashed by at the side of the highway. The road would soon divide
into two, one branch heading north and the other continuing on to Vegas.
Maybe, thought Ralph, maybe…

   When he came to the fork in the highway he took the northward
branch, the jeep's tires squealing as he arced through the start of a long
currving section running behind a low rubble-faced bluff. He caught a
quick glimpse of the motorcyclist taking the same turn behind him, before
the bend in the highway brought the bluff between them.

   As soon as he was sure he was blocked from his pursuer's vision, Ralph
hit the brakes, trying not to skid and leave any telltale black marks on the
asphalt. He lost control for a moment and felt the jeep's rear end slide out
from beneath him. When the vehicle came to a stop it was sitting
cross-wise in the lane, pointed towards the flat desert beyond the side of
the road.

   Without turning the steering wheel, he dropped the jeep into first gear,
trod on the accelerator, and lurched forward. The jeep rolled off the edge
of the asphalt, then plunged down a steep bank of loose rock and dirt. The
rear wheels spat small rocks into the air as the jeep careened sickeningly
downwards. Ralph clung to the jittering wheel.

   The jeep came to the bottom of the slope and hit the level desert floor
with a whump that bounced Ralph from the seat. The engine choked and
died but he made no movement to start it again. Instead, he listened,
hearing at first only the slight clatter of pebbles dislodged and rolling
down the slope. Then came the growling roar of the motorcycle,
diminished by the distance to the highway above. It grew louder, peaked
in a snarl, then dopplered away, following the curve of the highway.

   Ralph started up the jeep and accelerated across the sand, cutting
across the interval of desert towards the other branch of the highway. It
would be a while, he knew from his memory of the area, before the
northbound branch would straighten out far enough away from the bluff
for the motorcyclist to see that his quarry had eluded him. By then Ralph
should have gained a sizable lead on the route to Vegas. He sped up, the
jeep bouncing over the rock-strewn desert. It was, he knew, only a
temporary reprieve.

                                     ***
   It was over sooner than he expected. Out on the dark road, with
nothing in sight but moonlit dunes and brush, the jeep's engine sputtered,
coughed, ran steady for a few seconds, then sputtered again and died. For
the first time Ralph looked at the little circular fuel gauge on the
dashboard. The tiny needle was set hard against the EMPTY mark.

   He sat staring at the dial for nearly a minute, stunned. He marvelled
dismally. Whatever you overlook is just what shoots you down.

    With an effort he pulled his mind from the edge of the pit gaping before
him. He switched off the headlights, then got down from the driver's seat
and stood away from the jeep. In the dim moonlight it squatted silently on
its knobby tires. No longer an ally of his or even neutral, but gone over
now to the other side—Muehlenfeldt's universe.

   Wait a minute, thought Ralph. He circled around behind the jeep and
found a set of dangling straps beside the spare wheel, but not the fuel can.
Carefully, not daring to expect anything, he leaned over the side of the jeep
and probed the dark interior with his hands. Behind the seat he found the
fuel can. He lifted it out and heard a cheering gurgle. Not full, but at least
a few inches of gasoline sloshed back and forth inside the container.

   When the jeep's engine was spinning again, Ralph let out the clutch
and started picking up speed. Enough, enough, he breathed to the twin
cones of light racing over the road ahead. Make it enough to get to where
I can get some more.

   Anxious miles ticked off on the odometer, until finally the miraculous
occurred. A tiny store with a single antique gas pump appeared, nestled in
the angle where a smaller road joined the highway. Ralph brought the jeep
to a halt beside the pump and jumped out.

   The hose's nozzle was padlocked tight to the side of the pump. He
tugged futilely at it for a moment, swore, then let go of it and ran to the
store. A single fly-specked light bulb dangled beneath the battered soft
drink sign, illuminating the screen door. He jerked it open, found the
wooden one behind it locked, and began pounding on it. "Hey!" he
shouted. "Wake up in there!" The door rattled on its hinges as he kicked it.

   Through the window on one side he saw a light switch on in the store's
depths. A few moments later the door swung open, revealing a stooped
figure in striped pajamas. The old man's wizened head was hairless except
for the gray stubble on his receding chin. His eyes widened at the sight of
Ralph.

  "Hey, I need some gas." Ralph grabbed the man's elbow and pulled him
outside. "And quick—it's an emergency."

  "No," moaned the storekeeper. "I… won't give you any."

  "What? Why the hell not? I'll pay for it."

   "It's wrong." The old man feebly tried to jerk his arm free from Ralph's
grip.

   "Wrong?" He dragged the man closer to the gas pump. "What're you
talking about? What's wrong?"

  "To be on the road after dark." The cracked voice had shrivelled to a
whisper. "There's haunters out there!"

  "What the—Come on, I don't have time for this crap."

  "No, no, it's true! Turrible dark things. The little dot's out there!"

   "The little dot?" Ralph stopped and looked into the old man's face,
caught for a moment its mask of feebleminded panic.

    "When you turn off your TV," whispered the store-keeper. "And it all
turns into a little white dot in the middle, and then the dot goes away and
flies through the night, and it catches you and… sucks your blood. It's
true."

  "No kidding," said Ralph wearily.

   "Yes! Yes!" shouted the old man in a sudden fervor. "Turrible dark
things in the night!"

   "Then you might as well give me some gas. Because I get those kind of
things in the daytime, anyway."

   "No." Convulsively, the old man pulled his arm free and ran back to the
store, his thin pajamas flapping against his narrow legs. Ralph sprinted
after him and caught the door before the old man could slam it shut.
   Inside the store the old man had seemingly vanished. Ralph scanned
the rough wooden shelves packed with cans of beans and sacks of flour
that revealed nothing to him. Suddenly he noticed the edge of a shiny pink
scalp showing from behind a row of barrels. He walked over to them on
tiptoe, then reached behind and pulled the old man up by his stringy
throat. "Give me that damn key," grated Ralph. "The one to the gas
pump."

   "Ak… ak…" gasped the storekeeper. His face darkened as he dangled
from Ralph's fist. "You—you're one of… them!"

   "That's right. My buddy the little dot is right outside. So hand over the
key."

   "I don't have it!"

   "Where is it?"

   "In the cash register." The old man flapped his arm. "Over there!"

   Ralph dropped him and went to the counter at the rear of the store. He
struck the NO SALE button on the tarnished metal register. Under the
change bin in the drawer he found a ring of keys.

   When he had finished filling up the jeep's tank, as well as the spare gas
can, he tossed the keys at the baldheaded face that peeked out at him from
the corner of the store's window. The keys bounced off the glass without
breaking it but the old man ducked out of sight anyway. Ralph started the
jeep and got back on the highway, wondering, as the wind increased in
velocity, what dim mythology he had just gained a place in.

                                      ***

   Las Vegas was beating off the night with neon. He drove past the
incandescent casinos, his mind racing faster than the crawling traffic. A
motel, he decided. A cheap one—that's what I need. To get the dust off.
Nobody will listen to me if I look like I do right now.

   Beyond the city's brilliantly lit center he entered into one of the darker
sections. The neon signs were smaller or broken, flickering their odd
off-colors over shabbier, squatter buildings and the older cars parked
around them. Ralph pulled the jeep in under a sign with red and green
tubing twisted into the outline of a palm tree. The engine clattered for a
few seconds when he turned the key, then sighed into silence as the fuel
gauge needle fell the fraction of an inch to EMPTY.

  "Always glad to see an army man in town," said the gray-haired lady
behind the motel office desk. She handed the room key to Ralph. "Have a
good time."

   Perplexed, he stopped halfway through putting his wallet back in his
pocket. He realized then that she had mistaken the Opwatch patch on the
sleeve of his jacket for a military emblem. "Yes," he said. "I will."

  I should've taken my civvies, he thought as he walked across the
motel's courtyard. He had a sudden, irrational fear that the Opwatch
emblem, small as it was, could only help Muehlenfeldt's agents spot him.

   He let himself into the motel room and locked the door. On the bottom
of the pink plastic trash can in the bathroom he found a discarded razor
blade, its surface dotted with rust. He sat on the edge of the bed and
carefully—the blade was dull and hard to work with:—picked at the
threads holding the Opwatch insignia to the fabric. When it finally came
loose he flushed the patch down the toilet, then laid the jacket out on the
bed and sponged the dust from it with damp paper towels. He hung it by
the window and then let a hot shower massage the driver's cramp from his
shoulders and arms.

  "Is there a telephone booth around here?"

   The gray-haired lady behind the desk smiled and nodded. "Just around
there on the side of the building."

   Ralph closed the door and walked into the darkness on the office's far
side. He stepped into the glass cubicle and picked up the directory
hanging by a chain below the telephone. I wonder if the FBI is open all
night. He spread the book open, limp from constant use. Seems like they
should be.

   As he flipped through the tissue-pages, he looked up through the
booth's glass and froze. The row of parking spaces where he had left the
jeep was visible from an oblique angle. Someone, a dark silhouette
wearing a helmet, was leaning into the jeep and examining it. The
motorcycle with the bullet-like black fairing could be seen, sleek and
ominous under the streetlight.

   Ralph ducked behind the metal bottom section of the booth. The
telephone book dangled on its chain over his head. Slowly, he opened the
folding door and peered out, his head close to the ground. The
motorcyclist hadn't spotted him yet. As he watched, another figure
separated from the shadows and approached the one with the helmet.
They conferred for a moment, then started toward the motel office.

   He crouched out of sight in the phone booth, waiting and listening to
the tread of his two pursuers across the asphalt of the motel courtyard.
The office door opened, then closed. He crouched over and ran awkwardly
to the parking spaces, scrambling into the jeep. The engine started with
the first turn of the key, and in seconds he was on the street, accelerating
and heading for the illuminated area of the city.

   Jerk, he cursed himself as he drove. Just had to screw around and
wait for them to catch up, didn't you? He kept forgetting that in this
universe there was no time, that everything was always later than he
thought. Or too late. The jeep pressed on toward the surging neon.

   The traffic was so thick in the main part of the city that he couldn't see
whether he was being followed or not. He pulled into a casino parking lot,
beating out a wide Cadillac for the only vacant space, then got out and
sprinted past the rows of empty cars that surrounded the empty building.

   The noise and light inside reassured him. Somewhere out of sight, a
band heavy with brass was playing, its sounds interspersed with the
constant sound of people and money in motion. Words became altered
and lost in a partly mechanical, partly human clatter. Ralph hurried
through the lobby, beneath blazing tiered chandeliers and past slot
machines with little flashing lights. Where, he thought with a combined
desperation and irritation, do they keep the phones around here!

   Across an expanse filled with more slot machines and people he spotted
a booth. It was set against a wall that opened onto another gigantic room
where people clustered around and stared into the depths of felt-lined
tables. He hurried down the wide carpeted steps and started pushing his
way through the nearest aisle.

   A fat woman with blue hair and rhinestoned glasses—her small eyes
glittered behind the lenses—stepped backwards into the aisle to watch the
whirling symbols on the machine she was playing. She collided with Ralph
as he tried to get past. A paper cup full of nickels dropped from her hand,
and the coins scattered over his shoes and the carpeting. "Hey!" she
shrilled at him. "Watch where you're going!"

   "Sorry," he called over his shoulder. He brushed past two more women,
who stared at him indignantly and held their own paper cups tightly to
their breasts. Finally he broke free into the clear space in front of the
telephone booth. When he got inside it he pulled the folding door shut and
sank onto the little seat in relief. The casino noises filtered softly through
the clear panes of the booth. He placed the telephone book on his lap and
opened it, the thin paper clinging to his sweating hands.

   There was no listing for the FBI. Bewildered, he flipped back and forth
through the book, looking under "Federal."

   "Bureau," and "Investigation" with no results. He scanned all the
subheadings under "U.S. Government," but still found nothing. What's
going on here? he wondered, feeling cold dismay gathering inside him.

   Finally, he slid a dime into the phone and dialed Information. "May I
help you?" cooed the mechanical-sounding voice in his ear.

   "Do you have a number for the FBI?" he said. "The Federal Bureau of
Investigation?"

  The line hummed for a second. "That number is unlisted," said the
operator. "I can put you through to it, though."

   A flurry of beeping electronic sounds, then he heard the sound of
another telephone ringing. It went on for a long time until someone
answered. "FBI," a man's voice said casually. There were the faint sounds
of chewing and swallowing, as though he were eating a sandwich.

   Ralph took a deep breath before he spoke. "I want to report a plot. A
criminal conspiracy. They're—"

  The voice on the other end of the line sighed. "I don't think we can do
anything for you, then. You've got the wrong people."

  "Huh? What do you mean?"
   "It's all right," said the voice. "We still get—well, not a lot, but a
few—calls from people who still think the Bureau handles that sort of
thing. I guess most people don't know that we've been re-organized."

   "Re-organized?" said Ralph, incredulous.

    "Oh, yeah. It was a long process, but it began when the old Hoover
papers finally came out of the archives several years ago. A lot of stuff the
old boy had done didn't look too good, and Congress stepped in and
started changing things around. The bureau was pretty low in prestige
right then—hadn't solved any big kidnappings or anything for a long time.
It really began with the Watergate thing. So now we mainly just keep
records and send out pamphlets to high school classes. That sort of thing."

  "Hell," muttered Ralph. He kneaded his forehead with one hand. "Well,
who am I supposed to—"

   "What you want," interrupted the voice, "is the Federal Security
Agency. They kind of took over the things we used to do. Somebody had
to."

   "Oh. How do I get hold of them?"

   "They're in the book. Okay? They ought to be able to fix you up,
whatever your problem is. They all carry guns and do the TV hero bit. Just
like the bureau used to be." The voice sounded wistful, caught in
memories.

   "Thanks," said Ralph.

   "Glad to help."

    He already had the telephone book open to the letter F when it struck
him. The initials, he thought. FSA. His hand turned the pages by itself and
found the listing for the Federal Security Agency. There was a tiny
illustration of the agency's emblem. It was the same as the shoulder patch
that Muehlenfeldt's guards had been wearing.

  No way, thought Ralph, staring at the tiny letters and numbers in the
book. There is no way I'm going to call them. Besides, what's the point?
He suddenly felt like laughing. They're already here looking for me.
   The telephone book fell from his lap as he stood up and opened the
booth's folding door. He stepped out into the open space that bordered the
floorful of slot machines and their players. A man was striding rapidly
toward him from around the other side. Ralph caught sight of the other's
grim face and started in the opposite direction. He broke into a run and
glanced over his shoulder to see the man running now as well, brushing a
waitress with a tray of drinks against the wall.

   The gamblers at the tables looked up curiously as Ralph sprinted past
them. A bulky man wearing a uniform like a policeman—one of the casino
guards—stepped into his way, but Ralph managed to duck under the
outstretched arms. Behind him he heard his pursuer collide with the
guard. He looked back as he ran and saw the two men fall entangled to the
ground. The sound of a gunshot hit Ralph like an electric shock. There was
a second of quiet as the unseen band stopped playing, then a woman's
scream mixed with the harsh clatter of an alarm bell.

   He had spotted a side exit and was through it before his pursuer had
gotten up from the casino guard's limp body. Behind him was the bright
chaos of milling figures, scattering gamblers and more guards pouring in
from nowhere. As Ralph plunged between the dark shapes in the parking
lot he saw another figure running toward him from the street. There were
no features visible in the darkness but he thought he recognized the
outline of the motorcyclist.

  "Metric!" called the figure. "Stop!"

   Ralph had already changed directions, dodging between the cars as he
tried to elude the other man. The parking lot seemed vast, an endless maze
without light. From the street he had lost sight of came a mounting wail of
sirens.

  More figures appeared at the end of the aisle. He scrambled across the
hood of a car and, his lungs aching, headed down another corridor.

   The sharp noise of guns came at him from two directions. He dropped
to his knees, his hand scraping painfully on the asphalt. Brief spurts of
flame accompanied each shot, quick orange red flares in the darkness. A
fragmented memory passed through his mind from a book about police: if
the gouts of fire looked round, then the gun was being fired directly at
you—if teardrop shaped, it was being fired in a different direction. There
was no time to wonder why the flares at either side of the parking lot were
spurting toward each other and not at him. He squeezed beneath the
nearest parked car and crawled, his face brushing the asphalt, to the other
side, away from the battering roar of the guns.

   The firing became more sporadic but the flashes still tapered toward
each other. Ralph got to his feet, crouched over and ran toward the border
of the lot. On this side it was flanked by an unlit service road that curved
around to the rear delivery entrance of the casino. He reached the road
and suddenly heard the whine of an accelerating engine. The shape of a
motorcycle was just visible hurtling toward him. Beyond it, a car was
turning into the far end of the service road.

   Ralph pivoted around in the now quiet parking lot but froze when he
saw one of the figures running to him. Then, before he could make any
movement, the motorcycle skidded around at his side, its roar drowning
out the rest of the world. The machine's rider slammed an arm across
Ralph's chest, then fell with him as the motorcycle toppled and spun away
on its side.

   Stunned, he lay on his back, the stars blurring above him as he gasped
for breath. The motorcyclist didn't get up, but still gripped Ralph fast
about the waist.

  As though from a great distance he heard the car stop and its doors
open. Hands gripped him and lifted him from the ground. The
motorcyclist's arm loosened and he seemed to fall away in the darkness.

   Ralph was emerging from his daze as he was deposited in the car's back
seat. The door slammed shut and the car sped around in a tight circle,
jostling him against the seat's other occupant as the wheels thumped over
the curb of the narrow street.

   "You sure gave us a hard time, Ralph," said the person on the seat
beside him.

   He focused his vision on the other, then slumped down in the seat and
stared at the lights reflected on the car's ceiling. His mind was frozen
wordless.

  "Come on," said Spencer Stimmitz. "Pull yourself together. We don't
have much time."
                           CHAPTER 15
   Wailing sirens had surrounded the car as it sped out of the center of
the city. The noise was so loud that Spencer had given up trying to say
anything more, but had merely grinned and gestured with his open palm
for Ralph to be patient—all questions would be answered eventually. They
both swayed as the motorcade wheeled off the highway and headed across
the desert towards the waiting helicopter.

   It seemed to be bouncing gently on its landing gear. The sirens died
and Ralph could hear the urgent whup whup of the blades flashing silver
in the moonlight. In front of the rough semicircle that the police
motorcycles formed on the sand, the car pulled up and stopped.

   "Come on," said Spencer. He opened the door on his side, got out and
strode rapidly to the helicopter. After a moment Ralph followed him.

  "Hop in." Spencer held open the curved transparent door.

   Ralph looked into the machine's cramped interior. There was barely
room for two seats behind the pilot. The clear plastic sphere seemed
fragile as a bubble. Something fell and connected inside himself and he
suddenly backed away. "No," he said, shaking his head.

  Spencer stared at him. "Hey, what's the matter?"

   "I'm not getting in that thing. I'm not doing this stuff anymore." He felt
his face stiffening with blood. "I'm tired of getting fooled and fooled with
by everybody that comes along. You've suckered me enough times already.
I'm not going for anymore. You can try that universe out on somebody
else." He turned away, disgusted.

  "What are you talking about?" said Spencer.

   "Come on," he said, turning to look at him again. The noise from the
helicopter—the cool, expressionless pilot fluttered the throttle—and the
uneasy blue lighting from the headlamps of the police motorcycles drained
the reality from the scene. "You know what I mean," shouted Ralph. "All
that stuff with that phony Alpha Fraction and everything. Pretending to
be part of a group working against Operation Dreamwatch, and then you
show up here as one of Muehlenfeldt's agents. And now you want me to
climb in that thing? So you can toss me out over the desert or something?
No way. That's it. Go tell Muehlenfeldt he can blow up the whole damn
world for all I care. I'm not going to do anything to stop him. As if I could
anyway."

   "Have you ever got it wrong," said Spencer, laughing. "You didn't get
picked up by Muehlenfeldt's men—we just rescued you from them. What
do you think all that shooting was about?" He gestured, encompassing the
helicopter and the distant car. "This is the Beta group, dummy."

  "No such thing,"' said Ralph sullenly. "That's just Muehlenfeldt's
paranoid fantasy."

  "Ha. I bet he wishes that's all it is. Unh-unh. This is for real."

  "Yeah? Then how come you didn't tell me about it back in L.A.?"

    "I didn't know about it then." Spencer shrugged and spread his free
hand. "I didn't find out about it until they picked me up, right after we
tried to bug the Opwatch office. Remember when 1 phoned you? That's
who was after me, not Muehlenfeldt's bunch. Look." He caught Ralph's
elbow and tugged him to the helicopter. "We have to hurry. Get in and I'll
fill you in on everything. Trust me."

   One of the two men who had been in the car's front seat during the
rush from the city was now walking toward them. The headlamps glared
around his bulky outline. "What's the problem?" he said as he approached.
"What are you waiting for?"

  "No problem," said Spencer. "Just a little fear of heights, that's all." He
pulled harder on Ralph's arm.

   He hesitated for a moment, then stepped towards the helicopter.
What've I got to lose, he thought as he climbed-through the oval door. The
worst that can happen is more lies. The pilot grinned over his shoulder
and formed an O with his thumb and forefinger. Spencer got in, then
closed and dogged the door. The machine tilted and the ground fell away.

   Ralph looked down through the clear, curved side of the helicopter. The
police escort were turning their motorcycles around and heading back
into the city. Their lights grew smaller and were lost as the helicopter
banked and headed west. Below, he recognized the long strip of highway
he had travelled just a few hours ago in the opposite direction. Back to the
base, he realized. That's where we're going. He glanced at Spencer beside
him, as he felt the outlines of what he'd assumed wavering once more.
How much of this should I believe this time? "Well, let's hear it, then," he
said.

  "You know," said Spencer, '"a lot of this stuff is kind of hard to believe.
Pretty strange and all."

  "I don't think I'll have any trouble with it. Not anymore."

   Spencer leaned forward and picked up an object from the helicopter's
floor. It looked like a miniature portable television, white plastic and gray
screen. He set it on Ralph's lap and pressed a button on its side. The
screen lit up and began focusing into a picture. "Pretty neat, huh?" said
Spencer. "This is a first class operation, believe me. Maybe a little more
elaborate than necessary, but really top notch electronics."

   The screen held Ralph's attention. He watched as words appeared,
almost too small to read: "Beta Group Orientation Aid." Below that was
his own name. The words vanished and were replaced by the minute
image of a serious-faced young woman wearing glasses with heavy black
frames. She was seated at a desk and held several sheets of paper in her
hands. "Greetings," she said—her voice sounded tinny coming from the
viewer sitting on Ralph's knees. "If you are watching this—"

   "What is this?" shouted Ralph. The voice stopped and the woman's
image froze as Spencer reached over and pressed the button on the side.
Ralph knocked his hand away and slapped the top of the viewer. "I'm not
going to sit here and watch some crummy training film, for Pete's sake."

   "Take it easy," said Spencer. "We went to a lot of trouble to prepare this
for you. It went into the can only a few hours ago."

  "Yeah, well, what is it?"

  "It's an orientation aid, just like it said." Spencer's exasperation
showed. "You sure have become hostile. You know that?"

  Ralph snorted in disgust. "That's because this is a sleazy universe we're
operating in," he said. "As I've been finding out."

  "Big deal. Welcome to the club." Spencer pressed the button again. "So
just watch the film, okay? Tape, actually."

  The image on the screen was moving again. Ralph focused on it and
shut out the cramped interior of the helicopter.

   "—this," the intent woman was saying, "Mr. Metric, you will shortly be
asked to assist in an endeavor the success or failure of which will literally
determine the fate of the world." She paused and the letters FATE spelled
out at the bottom on the screen.

   "The audio-visual company that did this for us," whispered Spencer,
"also contracts for a lot of children's educational TV. I think some of it
carries over."

   Ralph ignored him. The glowing screen pushed the darkness outside
the helicopter farther away.

   "The purpose of this presentation," said the woman on the screen, "is to
inform you of the actual nature of the organization known as Operation
Dreamwatch, and to familiarize you with the agency seeking to counteract
this threat to humanity."

  "Sounds exciting, doesn't it?" said Spencer.

  "Shut up." Ralph leaned closer to the viewer.

   "Briefly," continued the woman, "the group you were in contact with
before, known as the Alpha Fraction, was not the only one investigating
and working against Operation Dreamwatch. The Alpha Fraction was in
fact only a diversion designed to help conceal the existence of the Beta
group—the real anti-Opwatch organization. Organized as a section of
Army Intelligence, the Beta group has been investigating Senator
Muehlenfeldt and his activities for over a year. The formation of a
separate, clandestine organization for this purpose was necessary due to
the domination of the Federal Security Agency by Muehlenfeldt and his
associates.

   "The existence of the Beta group was kept a complete secret from the
members of the Alpha Fraction. This was done in order to maintain the
smaller group's usefulness as a decoy for Muehlenfeldt's attention.
Knowledge of the Alpha Fraction's existence was deliberately planted in
the Opwatch organization. As they were then under varying degrees of
surveillance by Muehlenfeldt's agents, any knowledge of the Beta group on
their parts might have endangered the secrecy of the larger organization.
One man, Michael Stimmitz, was a member of both groups, serving to
coordinate the actions of the two groups."

   "Mike didn't even tell me about it." Spencer sounded proud of the fact.
"It was only after they caught up with me in that phone booth that I found
out."

   "Unfortunately," continued the woman on the screen, "last week
Muehlenfeldt learned of the Beta group's existence, due to the inadvertent
exposure of one of its members who had infiltrated the Federal Security
Agency. At the outset of interrogation, the Beta member was able to
trigger a miniature bomb planted in his skull."

   So that's what Stiles was talking about, thought Ralph. An image filled
him for a moment of the unnamed infiltrator's explosive death ripping out
from the head's center.

   The woman shuffled the papers she held and spoke again. "Other
infiltration attempts have been more successful, even onto the staff of the
Thronsen Home. Enough has been pieced together just a short time ago to
form a picture of Operation Dreamwatch's true intent and the mechanics
involved in fulfilling it.

   "From the first reports of what was going on inside the Thronsen
Home, it was hypothesized that the sleeping juveniles were part of an
elaborate cover-up for the project's real purpose. Upon further
investigation this hypothesis turned out to be in error. The children are in
fact the essential component of Operation Dreamwatch's plans.

   "The real purpose of Operation Dreamwatch is the construction and
detonation of an explosive device of tremendous force. The children kept
sleeping at the Thronsen Home are themselves the bomb." The letters
BOMB appeared on the bottom of the little screen.

   Ralph felt his innards constrict at the image of the sleeping children.
Stimmitz knew, he thought. He had it figured out.

   "The principle involved," continued the woman, "is analogous to the
construction of a nuclear reactor pile, but using psychic energy rather
than atomic. The devisers of Operation Dreamwatch have developed the
means for converting the basic energy of the human mind into a
destructive device of incredible magnitude." The woman paused, the eyes
behind the glasses seeming to pierce the double layer of glass between her
image and Ralph. "The estimated potential," she said quietly, "is sufficient
for the literal destruction of the planet through the conversion of the
earth's crust into a molten and/or gaseous state."

   Ralph rocked back in the seat and stared at the viewer on his lap. The
woman on the tape was watching her hands shuffle through the sheets of
paper. He turned his head away and looked out through the side of the
helicopter at the night. A vision moved through him of the earth's surface
boiling away, exposing the fierce core. There was no question of
belief—within himself he knew the world was only a thin shell against all
possible furies. The woman's voice brought his attention back.

   "The psychic bomb," she went on, "works in the following way. The
children involved were carefully selected from psychiatric profiles for their
high innate energy levels and low tolerance of emotional frustration. These
were the qualities that led to their delinquent behavior in the first place.
Maintained in a sleeping state in the Thronsen Home, their psychic
energies were then united in a common pool through the formation of the
dreamfield. Dream experiences, based on each individual's psychological
history, were then administered to heighten the degree of emotional
tension, increasing in turn the amount of psychic energy in the pool.
Eventually, as in a nuclear pile, levels of energy are reached where further
increases take on an exponential growth curve, the energy increasing
faster and faster without any further input. This chain reaction continues,
eventually resulting in the bomb's fantastic destructive capacity, unless
somehow controlled.

   "To control the rate of reaction in a nuclear pile, a damping material
such as cadmium can be used. This metal, inserted into a nuclear pile,
soaks up some of the energy and maintains the reaction at a safe level."

  That's right, thought Ralph. Zip rods.

   "To keep Operation Dreamwatch's 'psychic bomb' from premature
explosion, a similar method has been employed. Individuals characterized
by low psychic energy levels—the so-called 'watchers'—were inserted into
the dreamfield to soak up enough of the dreaming children's released
energy to keep the process from reaching its exponential growth curve.
Just as some individuals are capable of infinitely higher levels of psychic
energy, the watchers are capable of unlimited absorption of that energy
without altering their own nature. This was confirmed by the secret
electronic monitoring of the serotonin/melatonin activity in each
watcher's brain. While these hormonal levels are not themselves the
psychic energy process, they are an indicative side effect of it. To further
insulate the watchers from the energy released on the dreamfield, large
amounts of ethyl alcohol—in the form of beer—were made available to
them. Thus, the children's psychic energy levels were kept damped until
the psychological frustration experiences on the dreamfield had developed
their capacities to the point of a world-annihilating release of energy."

  The woman paused again before going on. "Unfortunately, Operation
Dreamwatch has reached that point. The psychic bomb's assembly has
been completed. At this moment, the children's collective psychic energy
has entered its exponential growth curve, and is increasing to the levels
necessary for detonation."

  The screen suddenly went blank except for the words "End of
Orientation."

  "Just in time, too," said Spencer. "Here we are."

   Ralph looked up from the now empty viewing screen, then out the
helicopter's side. Curving up towards them were the roofs of the base's
familiar buildings. Beyond the apartments he could see that
Muehlenfeldt's jetliner was no longer there. And where's Sarah now? he
wondered.

  Ralph said, "Wait a minute." The helicopter settled among clouds of
dust. Figures could be seen emerging from the administration building
and heading toward them. "That tape didn't explain enough."

   "That sort of thing never does." Spencer took the viewer and set it on
the helicopter's floor. "So what else do you want to know?"

   "If all the watchers' energy levels were being monitored, how come your
brother wasn't ever suspected of being different? I mean, his energy level
must have been pretty high."

   Spencer nodded. "Just goes to show what a first class operation this
Beta group is. They knew about the monitoring before they sent Mike to
hire on as a watcher. So they modified his brain chemistry—this is what I
was told when I asked about it—so that instead of his producing normal
serotonin, a molecular tail was added to the hormone. That way, his
serotonin/melatonin activity couldn't be accurately determined by the
Opwatch monitors, making his psychic energy level seem much lower than
it really was."

   Puzzled, Ralph scratched his chin. "But what about, me?" he said. "If
the watchers are only good for soaking up other people's energy, then why
did Mike think 1 could be of any use to the Beta group? What am I
supposed to be able to do?"

   "Mike figured you were different from the other watchers. There was
something that made him think that your psychic energy level wasn't
naturally low, that actually it's normal or even higher. But before you hired
on as a watcher you must have gone through a period of being surrounded
by very low-energy persons, and a subconscious telepathic ability picked
up on that and depressed your energy level to match."

   The Juvenile Hall, thought Ralph. The helicopter's cramped interior
seemed to fade away as his memory shot back to the long night-shift hours
at the correctional facility below L.A. Of course, he thought. The kids
there hadn't gotten into trouble because of too much energy and
frustration. They were the ones who drifted into dope and petty theft
because they didn't have enough energy to resist. So passive that life just
blew them along like leaves. And there I was surrounded by them every
night, their dreams oozing under the doors of their little locked rooms.
Tangling my feet as I walked down the corridor with my flashlight. No
wonder I was ready to become a watcher after that.

  "But what was the clue?" he said, focusing again on Spencer. "What
made Mike suspect all that?"

   "Really want to know?" Spencer grinned. "You were the only
watcher—besides him and Helga, of course—that didn't have a television
in your apartment. Not even a little portable one. That's a very
un-watcherish thing to do. A TV is always the most important thing a
low-energy person owns."

  "Maybe," said Ralph. He briefly wondered what his energy level was like
now, after all that he had gone through. "But what am 1 supposed to do
now? I mean, what did you bring me back here to do?"
   Someone unlatched the helicopter's door from outside. Spencer laughed
and pushed Ralph toward the opening. "Do?" he said. "Save the world,
schmuck! What else is there to do?"

   Ralph stumbled out of the helicopter, his heel catching on the rim of
the door. A man wearing some kind of military uniform caught him. "Mr.
Metric?" the man shouted over the helicopter's noise.

   He nodded, shielding his eyes from the grit tossed up by the whirling
blades. Behind him he heard Spencer's feet hit the ground.

   "Come on, then." The uniformed man steered him by the elbow away
from the wind and noise.

   The army seemed to have taken over the base. As they headed for the
administration building, Ralph pushed his hair away from his eyes and
saw groups of soldiers standing at regular intervals around the fence. Dark
green military trucks were parked in the base's center. The buildings and
the grounds were bathed a harsh electric blue by enormous floodlights at
the top of wheeled towers.

   A rifle-bearing guard at the door of the administration building saluted
as they went in. With Spencer behind, the uniformed man—some kind of
Intelligence officer, Ralph guessed—hurried him down the corridor.
Another guard saluted and held open the door of Commander Stiles's
office.

   Inside, a gray-haired man with the face of a crabby eagle set around a
briar pipe was sitting at the desk. He was wearing a dark green jumpsuit
with four metal stars on each shoulder. This time the man who had met
them at the helicopter saluted, then withdrew, closing the door behind
him.

  "Here he is. General." Spencer turned to Ralph. "This is General Loren.
He's in charge of the whole Beta group's operations."

   "Mr. Metric." The general stood up and extended a massive brown
hand over the desk. As Ralph took it, he could see behind him the torn
corner in the window screen and the bloodstain on the carpet where
Stiles's head had been. "Glad to have you here with us at last," said the
general. "There's very little time left, I'm afraid."
   "That's what everybody keeps saying." A sudden impatience broke open
inside him as he pulled a chair up to the desk and sat down. "So far,
nobody's said anything about what I'm supposed to do about it."

   The general sighed through his pipe and folded his great hands
together on the desk top. "Mr. Metric," he said slowly, "I wish there was
more time to explain this to you. Or time enough for you to rest before
making a difficult decision. But you're going to have to act on only a very
sketchy knowledge of the situation."

    "That's all right." Ralph waved a nonchalant hand. He felt slightly
giddy—his emotions seemed to have separated from events, going through
their own accelerating changes. "As long as it's a good sketchy knowledge
it'll be more than I've had before."

  "Are you drunk?" said the general, frowning.

  "He's all right," said Spencer. "Just overdosed on happenings. Come on,
Ralph, this is serious."

   "All right!" shouted Ralph. He flushed with anger. "So get on with it!
I'm listening."

   General Loren made little smacking noises around the stem of his dead
pipe. "I presume," he said at last, "that Mr. Stimmitz showed you the
prepared orientation tape. Good. Then you know the nature of the disaster
we're trying to prevent. Disaster is, of course, putting it weakly. If
Operation Dreamwatch reaches its culmination there will be no one left
afterward to call it a disaster." One of his hands pushed through the sweat
on his forehead. "Frankly, the only reason some of us are maintaining any
sort of calm is that we've been living with the idea for a little while."

    I think, said Ralph to himself, I'd rather live with it than be chased by
it all day. "Go ahead," he said calmly.

   After a deep, steadying breath, the general plunged in. "At this
moment, the psychic energy level located in the Opwatch dreamfield is
building to the point where it can be detonated. From the information
we've been able to get hold of, it's apparent we only have a few hours until
that point is reached—"

  "Why not blow up the Thronsen Home?" interrupted Ralph. "Bomb it,
as a sort of preventive strike. If the kids in there were destroyed, wouldn't
their psychic energy be gone as well? Now I know that sounds callous, but
given the alternatives—"

   "No." The general shook his head. "It's too late for that. Most of the
Thronsen children have died already—physically, because their psychic
energy has already been displaced into the dreamfield, where we can't get
at it. Once that energy starts on its exponential curve, it has a life of its
own. It can't be damped by sending the watchers into the field—even if we
could convince any of them to go."

    "Wait. Wait." Ralph pressed his fingers to his brow for a few seconds.
"If the energy is located in the dreamfield, why should we worry about it
exploding? That's a pocket universe, separate from this one. We wouldn't
be hurt by an explosion there."

   "Not if the dreamfield remained a separate universe. But it can be
transposed into this one. Just as part of this universe, the watchers, could
be inserted into the dreamfield, the dreamfield can be inserted into this
universe."

   "That's how my brother was killed," said Spencer. "See, the extent to
which this universe and the dreamfield can be overlapped is variable. The
watchers were never completely inserted into the dreamfield, but just far
enough so they could see the dream sequences the kids were being put
through—though that's unimportant—and also to keep the energy level
from premature detonation. Premature, that is, if your intention is to
destroy the world. Anyway, the watchers were always between universes,
so to speak. That's why they couldn't physically interact with the figures
on the dreamfield. Until Mike was killed. Then the dreamfield was
momentarily transposed onto the same plane as the watchers, and the
field's slithergadee was able to get at Mike."

   So that explains it, thought Ralph. He saw again the bloodstain on the
ground outside the base. The sudden transposition must have pushed us
closer to our own universe—close enough to bleed into it.

   "That's why the psychic bomb is dangerous," continued the general. "A
split second before it's to be detonated, the entire dreamfield containing it
will be inserted into this universe."

  "Oh." Ralph felt some space inside him diminish, as if to make room for
the dreamfield's intrusion. The inevitability of it seemed to be already
darkening the earth outside the window. "You mean you brought me all
the way back here just to tell me this? Somehow, that doesn't seem, uh,
kind. I could have caught it with everyone else in Las Vegas and been just
as happy."

   The general giggled, producing an unnerving effect. "Well," he said,
"there is a way to keep the psychic bomb from going off. That's why you
were brought here."

   A small, trembling premonition moved upwards along Ralph's spine.
Not of danger—all time, he knew, had now moved past that point—but of a
fearful responsibility with its point weighing against his breast alone. A
grade-school fear resurrected, but now bigger than himself, bigger than
anything—What if I screw up! he thought bleakly. The realization that
there would be no one to blame him afterward didn't help. He could barely
squeeze his voice out. "What am I supposed to do?"

  The large brown hands on the desk top were white-knuckled. The
general seemed petrified, his teeth clamped on his pipe in a frozen rictus.

   A small red spot of anger bloomed in the center of Ralph's vision,
blotting out the general's face. He just realized that the whole thing
depends on me. Ralph stiffened in his chair.

   "Forget him," said Spencer. He came over and sat down on the corner
of the desk. "I'm surprised the military mind was able to bear up this long.
This sort of thing just isn't in their universe."

  "So what's the plan?" said Ralph. "What am I supposed to do that no
one else can?"

    "It's like this. The psychic energy doesn't automatically explode at any
point of its exponential growth curve." Spencer held his palms a few
inches apart. "In fact, there's only a limited range of the curve where it can
be detonated at all. Below that range, the energy will dissipate harmlessly
if a detonation attempt is made. Above that range, the energy consumes
itself—burns itself out. If the detonator can be set off before the critical
range of the growth curve is reached, then the psychic bomb is harmless."

  "So where's the detonator?"
    "It's on the dreamfield itself. It's the thing the watchers call the
slithergadee."

   A memory of fangs sliding in their sockets, then Ralph rose a few inches
from his seat. "You mean you want me to go back on the field and—and
do what to that thing?"

    Spencer pushed him back down in the chair. The general's pipe fell
from his mouth. "The Beta group," said Spencer, "has developed a device
you'll take with you onto the field. You merely have to locate the
slithergadee, adjust the device as you'll be shown, then use it to set off the
slithergadee/detonator—before the energy level's critical range is reached.
That'll defuse the bomb."

   "Is that all?" Ralph's laugh came out like a gasp. "You're crazy—that
thing could be anywhere on the field. And what's to prevent it from getting
me like it did your brother?"

  "Hopefully you'll get it before it gets you. As for locating it—the sooner
you go, the better chance you'll have."

   No wonder the general froze up, thought Ralph. "It's impossible," he
said.

   "It doesn't matter whether you think it's impossible." Spencer gripped
the edge of the desk and leaned forward. "You're the only one who can
even try. Only a former watcher can be inserted into the dreamfield.
There's not enough time to prepare anybody who hasn't been one—and
you know we can't use any of the other watchers, even if, we could
convince one to go. They're useless for daily living, let alone something like
this. Face it. You're the only one."

   Two images rose in his' mind. Sarah, and—incongruously—the grinning
dog named Rin-Tin-Tin. At least he tried, thought Ralph. Or something
like that. "All right," he said. "I'm ready to go."


                            CHAPTER 16
   "It looks like a rifle." Ralph hoisted the thing in his hands.

   Spencer nodded. "I think they did take the stock from an army carbine.
Just to make it a convenient shape to hold and aim."

   The sports-jacketed Beta group technician who had brought the device
in a padded cloth bag now glanced nervously at the desk. The general was
sipping at a paper cup of water held in a trembling hand. "Is everything all
right?" he said. "Has Shadrach here been briefed?"

  "Metric," corrected Spencer absently. He was studying the gunlike
device intently. "Show him how to work this thing."

   "Really very simple." The technician tapped at it with a pencil. The
whatsit—you know, the detonator for the psychic bomb—is really a
concentrated energy source in itself. Kind of a small bomb to set off the
larger bomb. We haven't been able to figure out yet how the detonator is
controlled, except that it's set off by a relatively small energy pulse. This
gun will emit such a pulse—three of them, in fact, so you'll have that many
chances. Get within fifty feet of the detonator, aim the device just like a
normal gun, and pull the trigger. That's all there is to it.

   "Except—see these two dials here?" The pencil tapped at two small
gauges facing upwards at the gun's middle. "The one on the left will
indicate at what level between the dreamfield and this universe the
detonator actually is. We can't determine this beforehand because the
detonator apparently can be transposed independently of the dreamfield
and the psychic bomb—probably as a safety measure until the moment of
detonation. You must, before firing the pulse at the detonator, adjust the
dial on the right—see the little knob here on the side?—to match the
reading of the other dial. That will set the pulse at the same level between
the field and this universe as the detonator occupies. The pulse has such a
narrow 'reality bandwidth' that it will miss the detonator entirely if they're
not exactly in the same plane."

    "So what you have to do," said Spencer, "is find the slithergadee, get
within fifty feet, read the dial on the left, set the one on the right to match
it, aim and fire. Got it?"

   Ralph nodded. All the moisture from his mouth seemed to have
travelled to his hands. "What's this other stuff here?"

   "This clips onto your belt," said the technician, attaching a small
rectangular box to Ralph. "It's just a battery for the gun. Then this cable
runs from it and plugs into the stock. Like that. Now you're all set."
  He cradled the gun in his hands and headed for the door.

  "Good luck," rattled the general's voice behind him.

                                      ***

   On the way to the line shack, with Ralph in the center of the small
procession and bearing the gun like some new totem, they passed close to
one of the army trucks. He peered into its open back, then halted suddenly
on the path. The truck was filled with former watchers, sitting quietly on
narrow wooden benches that ran the length of the vehicle. A few had fallen
asleep, heads and shoulders slumped against each other, but most wore
the vacant, glazed expression of people trying to notice as little as possible
of whatever unpleasant experience they were undergoing.

  "Come on." Spencer pulled at Ralph's elbow. "Don't waste the little time
you got."

  "Just a minute," said Ralph. He had spotted the two watchers he had
been seeking, sitting side by side in the middle of the group. "Hey,
Goodell! Kathy!"

  The two leaned forward from the bench and looked down the ranks of
knees at him, framed in the truck's rear opening. "Ralph," said Goodell,
smiling weakly. "What are you doing out there?"

  "It's too complicated to explain now."

   "Well," said Goodell wistfully, "isn't this something? I guess every good
arrangement has to come to an end sometime."

   Beside him, Kathy suddenly jerked upright, as if jolted from sleep. Even
her face tensed, the usual slack lines tautening from within. "Is that all you
can say?" she shouted at Goodell. "They round us up and cram us into
these smelly trucks and all you can say is your crummy good job is over? Is
that all?" She swung and connected her small fist with Goodell's ear. She
was still shouting something as Ralph let himself be led away.

   "There's hope for us all," he muttered, using up the last of his capacity
for amazement. Spencer and the Beta technician didn't seem to hear him.

  They passed the saluting guard at the entrance of the line shack and
hurried into its cavernous interior. Another technician was up in the
control booth, looking around the little glass-enclosed area and comparing
it with a booklet he held.

   "Hey!" Spencer shouted up at the booth. "Are we ready to go?"
Somehow he had expanded to fill the hole left in the Beta organization by
the general's collapse. Perhaps he had been born to. He turned to Ralph.
"All right, then. Grab a strap."

   Without stopping to think, Ralph stepped into the middle of the space
and with his free hand caught one of the loops dangling from the
suspended cable. With a shock of recognition, he felt the familiar coldness
of the metal contact against his palm.

   Spencer turned and raised his hand to signal the control booth, then
lowered it. He walked quickly up to Ralph while digging something out of
his pocket. Onto Ralph's arm he buckled something that looked like a
wristwatch. "I almost forgot," he said. "This will tell you how much time
you've got. When the needle enters the red zone, it'll be too late—the
psychic energy level will have reached the detonation range. If that
happens, you'll probably be consumed by the explosion in a few seconds.
So don't try to cut it thin. Find the slithergadee and set it off as soon as
you can." Spencer started to back away.

  "Hey," said Ralph. "What happens to me when I trigger the detonator?
Will I make it back here?"

  "We don't know." Spencer turned and gestured sharply to the control
booth. "We'll try to get you back—"

   There was no time for any more words. The shack faded away and in
seconds he was on the dreamfield, the line snaking upwards out of his
grasp.

    He dropped to his knees, gasping. The dreamfield's sky had turned
yellow, writhing with figures at the edge of perception. A cold wind
stiffened the air, though the ground seemed to be shimmering with heat.
The force that had stricken Ralph on his arrival passed, although his
stomach remained coiled with nausea. He pushed himself upright with his
free hand.

  The field's remembered streets and buildings stretched out in all
directions, the mirror images endlessly repeating themselves. All the
shadows were burnt away by the yellow light, except one that lay like a
dark cross on the streets. That shadow was cast by Muehlenfeldt's jet,
crowded in among the buildings, its enormous wings over their roofs, the
cylinders of its engines reflected in the plate glass windows—some silver
bird of prey frozen amidst a deserted ant heap.

   Ralph studied its blank, staring windows for a moment, then turned
away and hurried down one of the streets leading from it. There was no
way of telling if the slithergadee would be aboard the jet, but for now he
fervently hoped it wasn't. Somehow he felt sure Sarah wasn't in there.
Only dreaded things, he thought.

   He ran down the street, gripping the altered rifle in one hand, past the
empty buildings and out of sight of the jet. In the middle of a crossroads
he stopped and looked at the dial Spencer had strapped to his forearm. It
was impossible to tell how far the tiny hand had travelled toward the red
since he had left the line shack. My time sense is warped, he realized. The
mounting energy on the field was disorienting him in every dimension. At
his core fear mixed with the nausea. He ran on, the buildings heaving
alongside him like slow waves.

   There was no sign of the slithergadee. Ralph squatted down in the
middle of the street and panted. He was afraid to look at the dial now—it
seemed as if hours of running had gone by, with nothing but an infinity of
small-town store fronts entering his vision. They should've known, he
thought bitterly, staring at the asphalt with his head lowered in
exhaustion. They should've known it wouldn't be just waiting here for me
to find. Either it's hidden where I'll never find it, or it's on Muehlenfeldt's
jet—and how can I get at it there?

   Something moved in the buildings to his right. He saw its motion from
the corner of his eye. Gripping the gun tighter, he rose and walked slowly
towards the drugstore where he had seen it.

    Inside it was dark, the racks and counters arrayed in oppressive silence.
He walked farther into the building, until he stood in its center. As he
pivoted slowly around, a figure rose from behind the cash register. "You,"
it gasped, stretching an arm of fire toward him.

   He stared at the swaying apparition for several moments until he
realized what it was. One of the children from the Thronsen Home, he
thought, dismayed. Burning up. The dream image seemed to be that of a
boy sixteen or seventeen years old, but with the skin bursting into glowing
heat. Red eyes, crazed with fever, stared at Ralph. The facial bones looked
as if they were about to break through the incandescence. "You," the
image repeated, then flowed around the end of the counter and leaped at
Ralph.

   Its heat scorched his face as he dodged to one side. The glowing image
rolled on its shoulder and clutched at his ankle. Frantically, he kicked free
and ran for the door. It's on the same level as me, he realized. Where it
can reach me.

   A pair of arms encircled his neck and he was thrown onto the sidewalk.
Another burning face hissed above him, pressing him into the ground
with its heat and weight. He brought the rifle butt against its chest and
pushed it away. Its shrill cry rang after him as he got to his feet and ran
down the sidewalk.

   The minds of the juvenile delinquents, with no existence now except on
the dreamfield, had burnt out with the overloads of psychic energy,
leaving nothing but the raw circuits of hate and fear. The street itself
seemed to be on fire as more images emerged from among the buildings.
Their garbled shouts coalesced into one sound in the air. Ralph eluded the
outstretched hands of one only to be tackled around the waist by another.
He beat at the radiant hands but more figures clutched at him, until he
seemed to be at the core of some burning pit. The heat dizzied him, until
the blood rushed into his head and he vomited.

   Somehow his finger found the trigger of the rifle. He pressed the altered
barrel down into the massed figures scrabbling at him, and fired, A
roaring noise mixed with the suddenly deafening cries of the dream
figures. He fell to the ground, clutching the gun to his chest. The burning
hands were no longer tearing at him.

   For a moment he was unconscious; then with one hand he lifted himself
onto his side. The figures were scattering from him in all directions,
heading for the darkness inside the field's buildings. A few feet away
something with the shape of a human being jerked and sputtered on the
ground, dissolving into white-hot sparks.

  The dial on his forearm was smashed, the needle dangling and useless.
He sucked in breath until his lungs stopped aching, then looked up and
across the roofs of the buildings. Far away, the topmost part of the tail on
Muehlenfeldt's jet could be seen. He gripped the rifle and started toward
the silver beacon, running past the buildings and ignoring the fiery eyes
that watched him from within.

   The plane's bulk shielded him from the yellow sky. "Hey!" he shouted up
at the curved belly. A panel shifted and slid open. He stepped back as the
stairs slowly lowered, the bottom step finally grinding against the street's
asphalt.

   No one stopped him at the top of the ramp. He walked cautiously into
the silent interior.

   The fish in the cabin's huge aquarium was dead, floating at the top of
the water. "Ralph," came Muehlenfeldt's voice as he stepped around the
tank. "Come on. You can't avoid this moment forever."

   The senator was sitting in the high-backed leather chair. His white hair
no longer lay smooth against his skull but stood on end in a corona.

   Ralph stood a couple of yards away and pointed the gun at him. "I need
to know where the slithergadee is."

   "Don't be stupid," said Muehlenfeldt. "Stop waving that thing about. I
know what it's for. You can't hurt me with it." He paused, smiling. "Come
on. Nothing to say now?"

  "Where is it?" Ralph lowered the gun.

   "It's no use to ask. You'll never find it." The smile grew wider and more
wicked. "You'll never find Sarah either. She's not here—you'll die universes
apart from each other. Sad, don't you think. She really is my daughter, you
know."

  "No," said Ralph. "She isn't."

   Muehlenfeldt laughed. "Oh, but she is. Though perhaps spawn is a
better word. We reproduce asexually—ah, yes, your friend Spencer was
right about me. Very intuitive of him. Sarah told me all about his
theories." He tilted his head to one side. "Sharper than a serpent's
tooth—isn't that how it goes? I was very surprised when she turned
against me. But then maybe she was sick in some way. Maybe she forgot
what she was and now she really believes she's human. This taking on
other creatures' identities can be a dangerous business. So let it be that
way, then. She can die with her adopted species."

   Lying, thought Ralph. His hands sweated on the gun stock. Confusion.

   "Still nothing to say?" Muehlenfeldt leaned forward in his chair.
"Nothing to ask? Before it ends?" He sighed. "That's the trouble with
you—all of you. Too easily distracted by trivialities. Like that military
nonsense in South America. That Ximento business. I instigated
that—money in the right places, and enough of it. Just as a distraction,
otherwise I'm sure my real purpose would have been exposed much
sooner. Perhaps even delayed."

    One of his wrinkled hands described a sphere in the air. "Think of it as
a work of art," he said. "The transformation of your meaningless and dirty
little lives into pure light. Perfect and intense. Like a star—that's how it'll
look from far enough away. Don't you think that's worth more than the
mere continuation of your petty existence?"

   "You're insane," said Ralph. "You'll die, too."

   "Fool. As if this were the only place in which I exist. I'll be watching
from out there when this poor husk is consumed with everything else." He
gripped the arms of the chair and laughed with his head thrown back, the
cords in his neck beating.

   Ralph watched, numb with sickness and the weight of defeat.
Muehlenfeldt's laughter grew louder until it filled the space. A string of
saliva bisected the cavernous mouth.

   The yellowish teeth suddenly lengthened, sliding in their gums.

    The teeth. Ralph stared, the realization bursting in him. He's the
slithergadee!

    The laughter stopped. Muehlenfeldt's figure seemed to grow larger as it
rose from the chair. It was swelling, changing into its true shape. "Yes,"
said the voice from the gaping mouth, sounding hollow and distant. "But
it's too late! Look out the window!"

   He looked and saw that the sky outside had turned red, a fire that
stretched to the end of every universe. Fumbling with the rifle, he backed
away from the thing in front of him. The floor tilted beneath him and he
fell against a table. The jet was climbing.

   "Too late!" The voice was buried beneath the thing's armor. Its claws
ripped the carpet as it scrabbled toward him, the fangs in its mouth fully
extended.

   Ralph rolled over the top of the table and fell on the other side. His
fingers trembling, he matched the dials on top of the gun. He pushed
himself away from the table, lifted the gun and fired point-blank at the
thing rising above him like a wave.

   A flash of light and Muehlenfeldt's muffled laughter echoed again in the
cabin. "Idiot! How can you hit me with that thing when I can alter my
level at will?"

   "No," moaned Ralph. He lifted the gun to his face. The needle of the
dial on the left was swaying erratically back and forth.

  "Give up," intoned the buried voice.

    Ralph got to his feet on the angled floor. He shouted something but the
blood roaring in his ears drowned it out. A mountain of glistening scales
and fangs toppled toward him. He didn't look but watched the left dial's
needle reach its farthest point, then fall the other way. With the gun butt
braced against his stomach, he turned the right dial's needle in the
opposite direction. In the split-second when they matched positions he
fired.

  Light, which grew brighter until he was blinded. He felt himself pressed
upward against something. It dissolved and he was falling. Then he
burned away as well, leaving nothing.


                          CHAPTER 17
   He awoke on the shimmering desert. Sand and sky danced blurrily until
he blinked and cleared his eyes. He lifted himself up on his elbows and
looked around. There was nothing to be seen but the empty desert.

  I wonder where the base is. He stood up, his knees trembling
unsteadily for a moment, and shaded his eyes. One direction's good as
another, he thought, shrugging his shoulders. He started walking, his
head lowered.

   After several minutes of trudging through the sand and dry brush, he
heard the sound of an automobile engine approaching. It appeared on the
horizon, trailing a cloud of dust, and grew larger. He stopped and waited
for it.

   Sarah was at the wheel of a jeep. She pulled in front of him and
stopped. The black dress, dusty now, was rolled up over her knees. "Get
in," she said.

   The wind bathed him, coming over the lowered windshield. The jeep
bounced over the sand and rocks for a little while, then climbed onto a
strip of asphalt road and picked up speed.

  "Where'd you get this?" he said finally.

   "It was at the base." Sarah pointed behind them with her thumb. "I
managed to reach there after he—or whatever it was—dumped me off the
plane. Spencer filled me in on what was happening, where you'd gone.
Then I sneaked out and stole this." Her hand patted the dash.

   "Oh." He looked at the strip of highway bisecting the desert in front of
them. "How'd you find me out there?"

  "Didn't I tell you once I had a knack for finding things that were
important to me? I knew where to look." Her hand drew a line in the air.
"You were like a falling star when you came back. Would you like
something to eat? There's a carton of something in the back."

   He found it and lifted it onto his lap. It was filled with cans marked
U.S. Army, followed by a number of several digits. He pulled the opening
strip on one and discovered canned peaches inside. He plunged his hand
into the warm syrup and pulled out a slippery golden crescent that
dissolved in his mouth like part of the sun. "Where're we going?" he asked
when he had finished the can.

   "I thought up north would be pleasant," said Sarah. "Big redwood trees
with lots of shade under them. And it rains every week. Isn't there a town
up there called Eureka?"
  "I have found it," murmured Ralph. He closed his eyes. He opened them
again when an after-image formed inside the lids of a gaping fanged
mouth. "Got any money?" he said. "It's a long drive."

   She pulled a man's wallet from under the seat and handed it to him.
"Should be enough."

   It was crammed with folded bills. A twenty fluttered free as he looked
inside. The wind caught the bill and sucked it into the dust behind them.
When he laid the wallet on the seat between them, Sarah took one hand
from the wheel and touched his. Without thinking, he jerked it away, as
though it were burned.

   Her face turned a little, the eyes studying him. "He told you that
I'm—like he was. Didn't he? The same kind of thing. He told me he would
say that to you."

   Ralph nodded. "Yeah. He said that."

   "It's not true. It was just hate on his part, trying to come up with the lie
that would hurt you most."

  He pressed his hand softly to her cheek. "I didn't really believe it
anyway."

  They drove on for a while. Ralph scratched his chin. "Won't Spencer
and the Beta group wonder what happened to me?"

   She shrugged. "They'll probably just figure you were destroyed when
you set off the detonator. The whole dreamfield collapsed and went out of
existence. They'll look for your body for a little while and then give up.
What does it matter? You've done enough for them."

   Ralph nodded. Maybe up north I'll start writing again, he thought. He
decided it wasn't worth trying to get into L.A. and fetching his old
unfinished manuscript from his parents' house. They were probably still
mad at him for abandoning their Ford somewhere in the city. Better to
start all over. With everything. He turned and watched Sarah for a few
moments, her hands resting easy on the jeep's wheel.

   "What's the matter?" Her glance caught his. "Still thinking of what that
thing said about me?"
   "No," said Ralph. He leaned back in the seat. "I don't really care
anyway. It's all right with me if you are really a being from some other
star. Just as long as you don't do that thing with the teeth. You know?
Where they turn into fangs and come sliding out in their sockets?"

  "Okay," she said. And smiled.