Dream Thief (48 page)

Hocking could not resist a smirk at her weakness. Humans, he thought, were all alike: scared children in the presence of things too vast for their puny intellectual powers. “You will not feel a thing. There will be no sensation whatever. See? We are already beginning.”

Hocking lied. There was an immediate sensation, and an unpleasant one.

Ari suddenly felt dizzy, as if the room had shifted, and the feeling in her fingers—which she held clasped together in her lap—faded away. For a long moment she could not focus her eyes.

But the feeling diminished and she felt, rather than heard, a deep vibrant thrum moving up through the platform, through the chair, and into her very bones. She clamped her teeth shut to keep them from vibrating.

Two long pincerlike claws came down over her head; Ari closed her eyes so she would not have to look. When she opened them again she was bathed in a shimmering
blue
aura. It covered her like a gossamer gown.

The light in the room had dimmed and Hocking was nowhere to be seen. She sat motionless and gazed into the flowing light. It seemed a part of her, and she thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. It sparkled with unearthly radiance, flecked through with silver beams which burst like tiny comets as they played over her form.

She relaxed and centered her mind on the dancing light. As she did a numbness overtook her, starting at the base of her neck and working upward over her scalp. The feeling was unusual, but not unpleasant. She let it creep over her until it seemed that her head had become isolated from her body—there was no longer any connection between the two that she could feel. But at the same time this did not alarm her. She accepted it calmly and noted it somewhere in the back of her mind.

Ari's breathing slowed and she felt herself drifting. It reminded her of those last waking moments just before sleep overtook her—that delicious nether region between wakefulness and sleep when the body relaxed and the waking mind gave itself over to the subconscious.

In a moment, with eyes wide open, as if stargazing on a star-filled night, Ari began to dream.

She heard a voice nearby. It was the voice of her father and she was a little girl playing with her doll on the porch of an old house. The voice said, “Ari, where are you?”

“I'm here, Daddy,” she replied. She looked around but her father was not there. She continued playing with the doll's frilly pink dress and heard again her father's call.

This time she rose from her play and looked out across a green lawn. The lawn was newly mown and smelled of cut grass. A light summer breeze blew clippings across the walk. Her father stood out on the grass and she saw him and waved to him.

“Come along, Ari. Follow me,” he said. But he did not look at her. He seemed instead to look beyond her. This frightened Ari. She could not think why her father would not look at her.

“I'm coming. Daddy,” she called as her short little legs scrambled dovra the porch steps.

Her father turned away and was walking quickly across the lawn in long strides toward a dark wood which grew near the house.

“Daddy!” the young girl cried. “Wait for me!”

The figure of her father reached the wood and stopped. He looked back and motioned her onward and then stepped in among the trees. Ari reached the place a moment later and stood outside, hesitant and frightened.

“Daddy, come out! I can't see you!” she shouted. Her tiny voice fell away among the trees.

No answer came from the dark wood. The afternoon sun stretched the shadow of the old house across the lawn and Ari drew away from it. She stepped lightly into the forest and was immediately immersed in deep blue shade and black shadow.

“This way, Ari,” she heard her father say. The voice came from just ahead of her.

She ran forward, stumbled, picked herself up and ran on. She caught a fleeting glimpse of her father's back as he moved through the tangle of branches. “Wait!” she called. “I can't keep up!”

But the figure of her father moved on, never looking back.

Little Ari began to cry. The tears streamed down her face and she sat down on the ground and wailed.

“Why are you crying, Ari?” The voice was warm and gentle. The little frightened girl sensed in it a friendliness and understanding.

She turned and saw a tall man standing in the light of the fading afternoon sun, golden and serene. He was unlike any man she had ever seen; he seemed to exude peace and kindness. His large yellow eyes looked down on her with benevolence.

“My daddy left me,” she sniffed, her fear dissolving. Here was someone who would help her. “I tried to follow him, but I got lost. I'm scared.”

“Don't be afraid. I will help you. I am your friend.” The figure reached out a hand and Ari took it, noticing with a child's curiosity that the hand had but three exceptionally long fingers. “Come with me.”

Ari and the tall being turned and walked out of the wood and back onto the lawn toward the house. But as they neared the old structure it began to change. The walls melted and rearranged themselves, the roof slid away, the porch became a great courtyard—the house transformed itself into a palace of shimmering gold.

“Is this
your
house?” asked Ari. Her eyes sparkled at the scene.

“Yes,” answered the being. “But now it is your house as well. You will live with me forever.”

They drew nearer and entered the palace through a magnificent gate of scrolled silver. A group of people were waiting for them, and when these people saw Ari they all cheered and made sounds of welcome.

They moved across the courtyard; Ari heard beautiful music playing inside. She saw a wide gallery, lit from within by glittering lights, and heard laughter echoing through the palace. A wide bank of stairs led to the gallery and she ran to the foot of the stairs.

“Ari!” someone called. She looked up arid saw her father surrounded by many others, standing on the stairs waiting for her.

“Daddy! You came back! Never leave me—promise?”

“Look who's here!” said her father. He raised his arm and stepped aside. At the same moment the people gathered around him parted and a beautiful woman dressed in white stepped forward.

The woman came down the steps holding out her arms for Ari. The little girl looked and at first did not know who the woman was. She looked again and saw that it was her mother.

“Mama!” Ari squealed.

Instantly she was swept up in her mother's arms and cradled to her breast. “Ari, my beautiful, beautiful child,” murmured the woman. “I've missed you so much. I'll never leave you again.”

Ari, overcome with happiness, pressed her head against her mother's neck and wept for joy. She heard the voice of the golden being saying, “Today your dreams have become real. You don't need them anymore. Give them to me and you can live here forever.”

WHEN ARI AWOKE SHE
was back in the closed room with her father.

“Ari, I've been terribly worried about you. Where have you been? You were unconscious when they brought you in. Are you all right?”

She sat up and grabbed her throbbing head. “I'm okay—I think. Oww … my head hurts. I've been asleep.”

“For nearly two hours. Where did they take you?”

Ari looked at her father. His words puzzled her. “Take me?” She dimly remembered Hocking coming for her and going somewhere dark and unpleasant, but nothing more. “I don't think they took me anywhere.”

“Yes, they did. You were gone when I woke up. You should have told me where you were going. I was worried—you were gone so long.”

“Was I?” She rubbed her head and closed her eyes. It made no sense. Nothing did, really. She had a vague picture of talking to someone and a warm, pleasant feeling associated with the picture. But who she had talked to, what they had said, anything at all about the meeting, she could not remember.

It was as if a piece of her mind, her memory, had been taken from her, wiped clean. She could not remember.

But the warm, pleasant feeling lingered and she smiled as it flowed over her like a gentle breath of air. “Wherever I was, it was the best place I have ever been,” she said. “I feel like I was in paradise.”

P
ACKER DISLIKED ESCAPING FROM
Chief Ramm—it made him feel like a low criminal. But he had no other alternative. He simply could not stand the thought of remaining in the cell another minute, waiting to be picked off like a rat in a basket. Whoever had tried to kill him would try again. He felt certain of that, and certain that this time they would succeed.

Probably last time they had been scared away by Ramm's coming back to the block; next time they would be more thorough. Ramm, for all his help, had demonstrated that he could not protect his prisoner. And though the security chief still maintained that the safest place for Packer was locked up in his protective cell. Packer disagreed. He had tried it Ramm's way, now he wanted to try it his way.

On his own he would be able to put some distance between himself and his assassins. So, he had escaped, finding the opportunity when he was left alone outside the cell for a few moments while men from housekeeping installed a new couch in his cell. He simply had tapped in a new access code—one that required a single digit. Then he had taken a length of stiff wire from one of the housekeeper's tool carts and slipped it up the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

He waited for the end of the shift—the exact time when his first attack had come—and when he was certain no one was around he produced the wire and went to work on the access panel, bending the wire through the vent holes in the upper portion of the plastic portal.

The burly physicist had been rewarded with success a half hour later when the door slid open. He walked out of the cell block and through the security station like a cat on hot coals. But he had not been seen or challenged.

Now he hurried toward his own quarters in the HiEn section, changing levels and taking the tube tram partway and getting off two stops before his own to backtrack and see if he was being followed.

He reached the HiEn section and went directly to his quarters. While he took precautions against being followed, it never occurred to his trusting heart that his office and living mod would be watched. He entered with the flood of relief which all hunted creatures experience upon reaching the safety of their lairs. His relief proved short-lived.

As his hand moved toward the access plate a voice said, “Don't do that, my friend—if you want to live a little longer.”

Packer froze in the darkness. He withdrew his hand and whirled around to face the unseen speaker. He heard a slight creak and a click, and a light struck him in the face.

He blinked and put up his hand. “Who is it?”

“What are you doing here?” his questioner demanded.

The voice was unmistakable. “Kalnikov?”

“Kalnikov—who else?”

Packer saw a hand reach out of the darkness and push the shade of the desk lamp down. The face of the big Russian leaned into the pool of light, grinning. “I am sorry, Olmstead. I had to make sure it was you.”

“What are
you
doing here?”

The pilot shrugged. “I heard you were being held and I came to the only place they would not likely search—the room of one of their own prisoners.”

“One of their prisoners—what do you mean? I was under protective custody. Voluntarily.”

“Oh, I see. They gained your cooperation at a very cheap price, then.”

“Kalnikov, what are you talking about?”

“Ramm and the others. How many others, I do not know yet. But they mean to take over Gotham.”

“Ramm?”

Kalnikov nodded slightly. “Didn't you guess? They fooled you completely.”

“I guess they did.” Packer switched on the lights and crossed the room, collapsing in a chair. Kalnikov settled back at the desk and rested his long arms on the desktop. He looked boyish and bemused, a sly smile jerking the corners of his wide mouth.

“What's so funny, you Soviet sausage? We're both in big trouble.”

“I was just thinking how surprised you looked just now. I'm glad it was me that met you rather than someone else.”

“You scared me. I wasn't expecting a welcoming committee.”

“Your trouble is that in your country you do not have a sufficient tradition of deception to make you naturally suspicious. It is very helpful in situations like this one. It allows you to view your position with a certain amount of objectivity.”

“Well then, Comrade Skeptic, what does your naturally suspicious nature tell us we should do?”

“It tells me we should do what freedom fighters in my country have always done—go underground.”

“Brilliant!” snorted Packer. “On a donut—even a big tin donut like this one—they'll find us sooner or later. There
is
no underground.”

“My unbelieving friend, there is always an underground. You will be amazed at what we will find. Come now"—the Russian giant got to his feet—"gather up your things. From this moment on we are invisible.”

SPENCE HAD NEVER HEARD
an authentic death rattle before. But when he heard it now, he had no doubt what it was: terrible and appalling, these were the last fighting gasps of a human life.