Chapter III

An invisible force seemed to twitch at Johnson's skin, nipping it here and there with a multitude of tiny pinches, like invisible fleas biting him.

"This is it!" a voice whispered in his mind. "This is what you came to Venus to see. This ... this...." The first voice went into silence. Another voice took its place.

"This is another damned vision!" the second voice said. "This ... this is something that is not real, that is not possible! No Venusian Dreamer, and no one else, can levitate, can defy the laws of gravity, can float upward toward the ceiling. Your damned eyes are tricking you!"

"We are not tricking you!" the eyes hotly insisted. "It is happening. We are seeing it. We are reporting accurately to you. That Venusian Buddha is levitating. We, your eyes, do not lie to you!"

"You lied about the space ship!" the second voice said.

"We did not lie about the space ship!" the eyes insisted. "When our master saw that ship we were out of focus, we were not reporting. Some other sense, some other organ, may have lied, but we did not."

"I--" Johnson whispered.

"I am your skin," another voice whispered. "I am covered with sweat."

"We are your adrenals. We are pouring forth adrenalin."

"I am your pancreas. I am gearing you for action."

"I am your thyroid. I...."

A multitude of tiny voices seemed to whisper through him. It was as if the parts of his body had suddenly found voices and were reporting to him what they were doing. These were voices out of his training days when he had learned the names of these functions and how to use them.

"Be quiet!" he said roughly.

The little voices seemed to blend into a single chorus. "Action, Master! Do something."

"Quiet!" Johnson ordered.

"But hurry. We are excited."

"There is a time to be excited and a time to hurry. In this situation, if action is taken before the time for it--if that time ever comes--we can all die."

"Die?" the chorus quavered.

"Yes," Johnson said. "Now be quiet. When the time goes we will all go together."

The chorus went into muted silence. But just under the threshold the little voices were a multitude of tiny fretful pressures.

"I hear a whirring sound," his ears reported.

"Please!" Johnson said.

In the front of the room Unger floated ten feet above the floor.

"Master, we are not lying!" his eyes repeated.

"I sweat...." his skin began.

"Watch Unger!" Johnson said.

The Dreamer floated. If wires suspended him, Johnson could not see them. If any known force lifted him, Johnson could not detect that force. All he could say for certain was that Unger floated.

"Yaaah!" The silence of a room was broken by the enraged scream of a Venusian being jarred out of his dream.

"Damn it!" A human voice said.

A wave as sharp as the tip of a sword swept through the room.

Unger fell.

He was ten feet high when he started to fall. With a bone-breaking, body-jarring thud, the Dreamer fell. Hard.

There was a split second of startled silence in the Dreaming Room. The silence went. Voices came.

"Who did that?"

"What happened?"

"That human hidden there did it! He broke the Dreaming!" Anger marked the voices. Although the language was Venusian, Johnson got most of the meaning. His hand dived under his coat for the gun holstered there. At his left, Caldwell was muttering thickly. "What--what happened? I was back in the lab on Earth--" Caldwell's voice held a plaintive note, as if some pleasant dream had been interrupted.

On Johnson's right, Vee Vee seemed to flow to life. Her arms came up around his neck. He was instantly prepared for anything. Her lips came hungrily against his lips, pressed very hard, then gently drew away.

"What--" he gasped.

"I had to do it now, darling," she answered. "There may not be a later."

Johnson had no time to ask her what she meant. Somewhere in the back of the room a human screamed. He jerked around. Back there a knot of Venusians were attacking a man.

"It's Martin!" Caldwell shouted. "He _is_ here!"

In Johnson's hand as he came to his feet the zit gun throbbed. He fired blindly at the mass of Venusians. Caldwell was firing too. The soft throb of the guns was not audible above the uproar from the crowd. Struck by the gas-driven corvel charges, Venusians were falling. But there seemed to be an endless number of them.

"Vee Vee?" Johnson suddenly realized that she had disappeared. She had slid out of his sight.

"Vee Vee!" Johnson's voice became a shout.

"To hell with the woman!" Caldwell grunted. "Martin's the important one."

Zit, zit, zit, Caldwell moved toward the rear, shooting as he went. Johnson followed.

* * * * *

A voice boomed through the room, in Venusian. "Let movement stop!"

At the sound of that voice the Venusians stopped all motion.

Again the voice boomed through the room.

"Bring the human to me."

The voice came from Unger.

The knot of Venusians around the human came back to life. A knife flashed.

"Bring him to me unharmed!" Unger boomed.

The knife went hastily out of sight. The knot of Venusians came untangled. They carried a struggling human down the ramps toward the bottom of the pit.

"It's Martin!" Caldwell shouted. "Let's knock these Venusians over, grab him, and break for the door."

"Hold it," Johnson said. "It may not be that easy. We will go with them to Unger."

Carrying Martin to the bottom of the pit, the Venusians set him on his feet. Martin was tall, dark-haired, a slender length of living, nervous whipcord. His hair was tousled, his clothing torn. As Martin came to his feet, Johnson saw that blood was running down one side of his face.

Unger was standing erect. His 300 pounds radiated anger, rage, hate.

"Dreamer, he had a thing which the humans call a camera or a recorder." The speaker, an elderly Venusian, was outraged. He jerked a knife from its scabbard. "Dreamer, allow me the privilege of slitting his throat!" He held the knife high, awaiting only the signal to plunge it into Martin's neck.

A fierce throb of anger seemed to flow through the Room of the Dreaming.

"All things in their time," Unger said. "Do you hold your knife for now."

The fingers of the Venusian trembled as he slipped the knife back into its scabbard.

"Dreamer, I obey. But remember, when the time comes, the privilege is mine. I spoke first!" Hot anger sounded in the Venusian's voice.

"It will be remembered, Taldero," Unger said. He lifted his gaze. "Bring me this camera, this thing that the human was using."

A Venusian carried the camera down the steps and handed it to Unger. While the Venusians had never denied humans entry to the dreaming rooms, any kind of a camera or other recording device had always been strictly forbidden. Neither argument, persuasion nor offers of payment had ever moved a Dreamer to permit the recording of a dream performance. Under his breath, Johnson cursed. The recorder was evidence that could not be denied. "The fool!" Johnson cursed.

Unger took the device and examined it.

"Hmmmm." His eyes sought Martin. "This is not only a camera, it is a very complex and compact recording device designed to make a permanent record of the sights, sounds, and many of the other vibratory frequencies present in this room."

"Well--" Martin said.

"There is no point in attempting to deny it. The object speaks for itself. Why did you bring this recording device into the Room of the Dreaming?" Unger's words were hard and cold.

"No excuse!" Martin's words were hot. "Just a single question: Why are they forbidden in these rooms?"

"Why?" Unger's voice suddenly lost its certainty.

Martin's voice continued. "Why have you kept this information from us humans? Is it because these Dreaming Rooms, and the act of dreaming as practiced by you Venusians, is nothing but a hypnotic device, a trick used to cheat fools of their money?"

"It--"

"Fraud!" Martin shouted. The word seemed to roar through the room.

Unger lost his poise. The Venusian seemed to writhe, to squirm, to twist as if some unseen and invisible force was torturing him.

Johnson moved forward. Caldwell went with them. Martin saw them for the first time.

"Johnny! Caldwell! Where did you come from?"

Johnson's eyes were centered on Unger. The zit gun in his hand was poised and aimed at the eyes of the Venusian.

"If anyone makes a move toward us, the charge in this gun will go into your eyes," Johnson said. "I suppose you know that under such circumstances the charge from a zit gun will kill."

Unger stopped his squirming. He seemed suddenly to realize that other humans were present. His round, impassive face turned toward Johnson.

"Ah, yes, you," he said.

"Call off your dogs," Johnson said. "Tell these people to permit us to leave."

"But--"

"You look at death, Dreamer!"

"I know that. Death is not important. Have you considered that these dogs are really wolves who will tear you to pieces at my nod?" Unger's shifting gaze indicated the other Venusians in the room. Out of the corners of his eyes Johnson saw that Taldero had drawn his knife again. Others were moving like jungle cats getting ready to pounce.

"True, you can have your wolves kill us," Johnson said. "But our deaths will follow yours, not precede it."

His voice was clear and firm. If there was fear in him it was out of sight. He did not know how much most of the Venusians were understanding of what he was saying but one thing they certainly understood--the zit gun in his hand.

"We are going out of here," Johnson said. "You are going with us as a hostage. Our lives for your life."

Unger lifted his hand. "One minute, if you please. There are questions I want to ask. Who is this man?" He gestured toward Martin.

"A very renowned human scientist."

"Ah, and what is he doing on Venus?"

"Don't tell him!" Caldwell spoke sharply. "It's none of his business."

"It might be some of my business if I knew," Unger said.

Warning voices were urging Johnson away from this place, screaming at him to get away while he had the chance. Inside of him, tiny voices were shouting warnings, his skin was reporting sweat again, his brain was reporting the pressure of an emotional overload. Inside of him was still another voice insisting that here he dealt with illusion and hallucination, shouting at him, "You saw a space ship where no space ship could exist! In this place how can you determine reality?"

* * * * *

The expression on the face of the Venusian was very strange but it was some kind of a smile. Seeing it, Johnson hesitated, spoke impulsively. "We three are a group of human scientists who have come to Venus to ..." he hesitated.

"Damn it, Johnny!" Caldwell gritted.

"Tell him, Johnny," Martin spoke. "There may be more involved in telling him than we know. The recordings will tell."

"We came here to investigate the dreaming," Johnson spoke.

"Ah," Unger said. Shades of feelings played across his face. "You are the three humans who came asking about the dreaming! I have heard of you."

"We asked for information, knowledge, understanding," Johnson's voice got hard again. "We sought these things. What did we get?"

"You asked for bread and we dreamers gave you a stone," Unger spoke.

"What?" Johnson gasped. The shift to a religious framework startled him. He had not thought that a Venusian understood such things.

"Perhaps the stone we gave you was more palatable than the bread you asked for," Unger continued.

"But--"

"However, when your request was denied, you did not stop seeking?" Unger asked.

"Of course not! We don't belong to a race that stops seeking. We sought other ways to get the information."

"Is the information important to you?"

"Yes."

"What luck did you have with the other ways?"

Johnson shook his head. Bitterness came up in him. "None. The Dreaming Rooms were everywhere, the Dreamers were a group apart. The Dreamers would not talk. No other Venusian ever admitted knowing anything."

"And so--"

"One of us, the most impetuous and perhaps the most brilliant of us, became impatient." Imperceptibly Johnson nodded toward Martin. "We knew there was danger in the Dreaming Rooms. He ignored that danger. He slipped away from us. I think perhaps he hid from us to protect us from the danger he intended to face. We discovered that possibly he had come here tonight. We did not know for sure that he was here until a Venusian discovered the recorder in operation."

Martin stepped forward and took the recorder from Unger's hands. The Venusian released it without reluctance.

"So you came here tonight to find and help a friend?" Unger said.

"Yes. He is impetuous and impatient. He wants answers."

"And I've got 'em right here." Martin clutched the recorder in a tighter grip. "Let's get out of this joint. I want to see what these wires have on them. Come on, Johnny. You cover that Dreamer and we will take him with us--"

"One instant more," Unger spoke. "What was the vision that you saw?" He addressed Johnson.

"A--"

"Eeeeeeeh!" A woman's scream ripped through the room. Martin and Caldwell both turned. Johnson did not move. He kept his eyes rigidly fixed on Unger. The Venusian stood in the bright glare from the spot, glanced toward the source of the scream.

"Bring the human forward unharmed," Unger spoke.

Fighting, scratching, clawing, doing everything but spit and she would have done that if she had had the chance, Vee Vee was dragged forward. Johnson still did not move. Neither his gaze nor the focus of the zit gun ever left Unger's face. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw Martin leap forward.

"Vee Vee!" Martin screamed. "What in the devil are you doing here? What the hell are you doing on Venus?"

Out of the corners of his eyes, Johnson saw Vee Vee flow into Martin's arms. "Hank, Hank, darling, I came by the last rocket. I've been looking everywhere for you." Her arms were around Martin's neck and she was kissing him wildly. "I learned you might be here and I came here looking for you. When they caught you, I tried to escape and go for help. I couldn't get out. They caught me too, Hank." Again she kissed him.

The word, "Hank," rang through Johnson's mind like a bell. Very few people knew Martin's nickname. He was very sensitive about this name, it was his most carefully guarded secret, known only to friends intimate enough not to use it. If Vee Vee knew Martin's carefully guarded name.

"Oh, hell!" Something inside Johnson said. "Damn!"

He glanced at the two, to make certain of what he was seeing out of the corners of his eyes. The instant after he shifted his gaze he knew it was not the thing to do. He swung quickly back to look at Unger.

The circle of light was empty.

Unger had vanished.

In the silence, Johnson could hear Venusian feet drawing closer, the soft rustle of knives being pulled from scabbards.