Dreamhunter Duet: Dreamquake Part 22

Rose's next partner came to claim her. She gathered up the hem of her dress; he took her hand and led her onto the floor and into a crisscrossing, lively contra dance. It was fun, and all Rose's hours of practice came back to her. No one on the floor seemed lost or clumsy. The girls were all weaving their way deftly backward past their partners, their hair bouncing, their heads turned back over their shoulders. Rose saw Mamie, wearing a look of determination and concentration but doing fine. She saw Laura, who was dancing not with Sandy but with a tall, fair-haired army lieutenant. Laura was easy to spot, in her vivid dress, flying, light on her feet.

The next dance was a waltz. And Laura danced with Sandy, scooped against him so that he seemed to support half her slight weight. Rose's partner was a proficient dancer, but so shy and formal that Rose had a hard time not laughing her way through the whole thing. He talked about the weather, and the heat of the room. She wished he hadn't mentioned the heat. Her close-fitting, pearl-encrusted gown was proving hot and heavy. She was going to be cooking before the night was through.

One of the ushers delivered a note to Cas Doran and pointed out the men, bowler hats in hand and standing partly concealed by pillars in the entranceway. Doran made his way around the edge of the dance floor.

His daughter galloped past, part of a group of couples skipping counterclockwise within the clockwise movement of a greater circle of dancers. Mamie looked at him as though he was guilty of some terrible treachery to her. He slowed down and stared after her as she was swept away. He was annoyed-his wife had promised and a.s.sured him that, ultimately, Mamie would enjoy this ball. It didn't appear to him as though she was enjoying herself.

The Regulatory Body officials had delivered one of the rangers who were the source of the reports that, all evening, had been aggravating the Secretary of the Interior. They had secured a quiet room in the Palace. Their chief closed that room's door, and they all gathered around the tired man.

"I want you to explain these reports," Doran said, and produced two of the telegrams. "I know you've been told to be careful in your communications. But in this instance you've been so careful that you've left us in the dark."

He placed the telegrams in front of the ranger. The top one read: AGENT SEEN FILMING THE DEPOT STOP GAVE CHASE BUT LOST INLAND STOP.

"How is it possible that your people pursued this cameraman but didn't manage to catch him?" Doran said. "You were, after all, selected for your strength and stamina as well as your discretion."

Every ranger had once hoped to be a dreamhunter. All had enjoyed moments of elation at their Tries. They had crossed the border! Each one of them had imagined being rich and famous, but all had found themselves unable to catch dreams. There were no famous rangers, and all were wageworkers for the Dream Regulatory Body. Some did a little better in private deals they made with various dreamhunters, but none were rich. Rangers did tend to suffer from a sense of thwarted ambition, so it had been no trouble for Secretary Doran to recruit men eager to take on extra risks-and vows of secrecy.

"The man was faster than we were, even carrying his camera," the ranger said. Then he straightened in his chair. "I want to give a report, Mr. Secretary, not offer excuses." He began: "At five-thirty p.m. on February the twenty-eighth, rangers McIndoe and Butler first spotted a man standing around one hundred and fifty yards from the outbuildings of the Depot and cranking the handle of a movie camera. As we watched, he came closer. Rangers McIndoe, Butler, Carter, Hollander, and myself-"

Cas Doran looked at one of his officials, who supplied the ranger's name, "McIntyre."

"We approached him," said McIntyre, then paused and pa.s.sed his hand across his face, pressing hard, as though to wipe something off. "Secretary Doran," the man said, "the cameraman seemed to be wearing some kind of suit."

"A uniform?"

"No." The ranger seemed reluctant to say what he'd seen.

"Please go on," Doran said.

"He was wearing an all-over, skintight, glistening gray suit of some kind."

"Knitted," one of the officials added; he had obviously heard the story earlier.

"I didn't say knitted," the ranger snapped.

Doran knew that the navy was trying to develop garments to keep bodies warm in cold water, and he supposed it was possible that someone enterprising might have invented a protective, water-conserving suit to be worn deep Inland.

"Not knitted, not rubber, not any of those things you've speculated about," the ranger said, glaring at the Body officials. "I want to say that it-" He broke off and scoured his face with his hand again. Then he finished, very softly, "-that it wasn't even a suit."

"Wait," said Doran, though no one had spoken. He walked around the room a few times.

After the riot at the Rainbow Opera, several members of the fire watch had claimed that a "glistening, gray, monstrous man" had shorted out the power board and smashed all the doors on the private balconies. Cas Doran paced and thought. He thought that Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles was only a dog daubed with luminescent paint and howling with pain. He didn't believe in monsters, he traded in them, at least in monstrous dreams. He knew that impressionable people could be made to believe things that weren't true, could be tapped for fear of the unknown-as if dread was the groundwater of humanity and all any intelligent master of men had to do was sink a well.

Doran rounded on the ranger. "You've been manipulated. You're a superst.i.tious lot-you rangers and dreamhunters. You make myths faster than you make money."

"All right," said the ranger, then added, "sir."

"Perhaps you couldn't catch him because you were afraid of him," Doran said, insinuating.

"We ran after him. He slung the camera over his shoulder and took off-like a horse."

"Oh-not like a flying horse?" Cas Doran's voice dripped sarcasm.

The ranger went red. "He went Inland, west, at a forty-degree angle to the rail line. He didn't have any water with him. Or none we could see. He may well have had a cache of supplies somewhere. But we immediately posted guards at the tower, and over the cable car. He can't possibly have gotten his film out again. There's no danger of that."

"Laura Hame is out there in the ballroom, dancing, a picture of health. And yet I was a.s.sured that she couldn't have used the cable car either." Doran swooped on the ranger, slapped his hands down on the arms of the man's chair, and leaned over him.

The man cowered back into his seat.

Doran shouted, "There is obviously another pa.s.s through The Pinnacles that you lazy incompetents couldn't find! A route that wouldn't have required years of work and thousands of dollars of engineering to open!" He snapped upright again, releasing the arms of the chair so quickly that it teetered and the man flailed for balance before the chair came down again on all four legs. His voice quiet again, Doran asked one of the officials to fetch Maze Plasir. "As for you," he said to the ranger, "you can get back to the Depot, immediately. And I will arrange for you to supervise several months' worth of supplies on your journey."

"Are we to be under siege, then?" the ranger asked, and flinched when Doran looked at him.

"There you go again," said the Secretary. "Imagining yourself surrounded by monsters." He signaled to several officials, who helped the man up and led him out.

Maze Plasir appeared, fanning himself with a lady's ivory-and-rice-paper fan. He took one look at Doran's face, sat himself down, and waited.

Doran said to his men, "I want that Soporif you've been promising me."

One replied, "We've had him under constant observation since he began performing at Fallow Hill. But he's never on his own. He's even been sleeping in the same bed as the Hame girl."

"Ah, young love," said Plasir. "How inconvenient."

"He dressed for the ball tonight at his uncle's apartment. His uncle was there."

"You could always have taken his uncle too," Doran said.

"We didn't have the manpower, Mr. Secretary."

"Tell your detail to be a little more daring," Doran said. He dismissed them. When the door closed, Plasir said, "Are you about to put your plan into action?"

"Yes."

"And you will tell me when you need me to go In and catch a master dream to provide your household with some shelter?"

"My house and the houses of my allies are safe. Out of range. I'll need you to have some strong dream as a safety measure. In case some dreamhunter actually thinks to go on the offensive. I imagine that a small capsule of one of your master dreams could withstand the wide sweep of Laura Hame's?"

"Yes. If you keep me close, I can keep you safe," Plasir said. "But, Cas, I'd much rather we made a slow start and experimented with the dosage of Contentment. This has all been so long in the planning that you should act only on your timetable." Plasir's posture and tone were casual, but he was trying to warn his friend.

"I don't have time."

"This isn't about Tziga Hame's return, is it?"

"No. I've made inquiries. He's under treatment for epilepsy. There are no epileptic dreamhunters."

"True."

"The Tiebolds and the Hame girl are out there dancing,bending their knees to the seasonal social rituals. The Grand Patriarch is bestowing blessings on debutantes. Whatever measures they are taking against me, they must suppose they'll work. They must suppose they have me somehow. The Hame girl may be simple. She might not have had the imagination to see what the dream at the Depot could be used to do. She might just have run back home wiping her brow with relief that she'd avoided charges of trespa.s.sing. She might believe she's a naughty girl and be thinking nothing much about Contentment and what it can do. But I can't count on that, can I?"

"No."

"They've forced my hand."

9.

HORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT, THE ORCHESTRA STOPPED FOR A SUPPER BREAK. THE DEBUTANTES CAME OFF THE dance floor, and some found their mothers waiting for them with plates. Grace beamed at Rose and handed her one on which cold meats and salads were heaped in a perilous pile.

"Ma!" Rose pa.s.sed the plate to her father. "I have to go upstairs and cool off. This dress is magnificent, but it's killing me."

Grace looked crestfallen. "We didn't really think it through, did we?"

"Never mind." Rose squeezed her mother's hand and smiled at her father, who was foraging through the green salad with a fork, chasing chunks of meat and potato.

Rose left her parents. She spotted Mamie in the slow line making its way into the supper room. Mamie was with Ru, but Rose still went up and asked her friend whether she was enjoying herself.

"I'm hungry," Mamie said.

"You stood up for nearly every dance," Rose said, congratulating her.

"That would explain why I'm hungry, wouldn't it?"

Rose glanced at Ru and saw that he had his back to them. She relaxed a little.

Mamie said, "I know you want me to say it's not so bad after all, and I'm having a fine time because, really, Rose, it's you who persuaded me into all this." Mamie gestured around her at the crowd in their finery.

"You always intended to come out this year."

Mamie screwed up her face. Her cheeks began to show webs of red-her skin never flushed evenly. "Who says I intended to come out at all? Why would I want to? This ball is nothing but a way for a girl to declare that she expects to get married."

"Can't it just be fun?"

"It could be fun if it was fun," Mamie hissed.

Rose lost her temper. "Why do you always have to be above everything? You're acting as though this whole occasion exists as a slight to you. You're not enjoying it, so it must be no good!"

"It's easy for you, Rose," Mamie said, with quiet contempt.

"Yes, it's true, some things are easy for me," Rose said. Her voice was cool, but Mamie stepped back from her stare. "Nature has been kind to me. But I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm going to let my friends act like checks and balances to nature, when really they are only the social law of averages."

Mamie was on the defensive, and breathing hard, but she held her ground. "I don't need your charity," she said to Rose.

"It was just help, Mamie. It's what friends do."

Someone touched Rose's shoulder, and she jerked, knocking whoever it was back.

"Ow!" said Laura.

"Watch it, Rose," said Sandy.

"Do you want me to go up to the powder room with you?" Laura asked her cousin.

Rose looked at Laura sheepishly, and all the fight left her. "Yes. Thanks," she said.

"I'll be down again to say good night before you go," Laura said to Sandy. He was going to dream The Gate in the early morning hours at Fallow Hill. She had opted to stay for the whole ball. ("Rose will want to talk about it," she'd explained to Sandy. "It's a big thing. And I'd like to be there in the morning to see the first calling cards come in.") The cousins strolled away, arm in arm.

Mamie turned her face to her brother's back, her lips pressed together hard.

Sandy joined the line and shuffled along. He pretended he hadn't heard a thing. He expected Ru to comfort his sister, but Ru kept on chatting to his new naval academy friends. Those young men were peering at Mamie, some embarra.s.sed, some concerned, some spitefully amused-but no one uttered a word. Sandy tried to think of something to say. Something kindly. His mind was blank. If he meant to stay, he could ask her to dance, but he didn't mean to stay.

Chorley Tiebold went past, gave Sandy a friendly nod, then glanced at Mamie and stopped in his tracks. He came over. "You shouldn't have to stand in line," he said. "You girls are supposed to have plates waiting for you. And trainers who can toss a blanket over you so you won't cool off too quickly while they walk you around."

Mamie snorted.

"What can I get you?" Chorley said. "I've eaten. There're plates all over the seats in there." He jerked his thumb at the ballroom. "I managed to balance mine on the bust of President Broughton, with the help of his laurel wreath." He drew a circle around the top of his own head, then mimed balancing something.

"I'd like some trifle and cheesecake," said Mamie. "My mother has had me on lemon and barley water for two days."

"Time for a mutiny," Chorley declared.

"Yes."

"You stay there, I'll be right back," Chorley said, and sailed off to the head of the line.

"Mr. Irresistible," Mamie muttered. But she was prepared to accept charity, so long as it came with cake.

Laura unfastened the hundred small pearl b.u.t.tons at the back of Rose's dress. Rose sat slumped in front of one of the dressing room mirrors while Laura and an attendant fanned her face and bare back. Rose's head felt impossibly heavy, weighed down by her high coif of humid hair. A drop of sweat trickled down behind one ear, and the attendant dabbed it away with a towel. Someone brought her an iced tea.

Debutantes were in and out to make themselves comfortable and repair their looks. Some appeared with their mothers, girls who were already being debriefed about whom they had met, whom they had liked, and who had seemed to like them. Several sat miserably and listened to anxious motherly advice. Most didn't stay long. By the end of suppertime, the powder room and cloakroom were almost empty. The attendants were gathering discarded towels and dropped hairbrushes. One senior from the Academy was lying on a sofa, her mother in attendance, overcome after dancing every dance. Another girl had a blistered foot. She had spent the supper hour soaking it in briny water. Her mother had bandaged the blister, and the seamstress was now busily unpicking a seam on the girl's dancing slipper so that she could stuff her bandaged foot back into it.

Rose told Laura she wasn't yet ready to go. She'd wash herself a bit and splash on some witch hazel.

"I'll just go down and say good night to Sandy," Laura said. "And be back to help b.u.t.ton you up."

Laura hurried out to the second staircase and down one floor-where there was access to the main staircase and she could find her way back to the ballroom. Sandy was waiting for her in the entranceway. She grinned at him, grabbed his hand, and dragged him back to the stairs. "Surely I'm not allowed up there?" he said, but he went with her.

She scampered ahead of him, sometimes going backward and holding him with both hands. They got to the second floor, and she took him along a hall and onto the secondary staircase. She led him down to the low-ceilinged hallway that all the debutantes had entered by earlier. Laura whispered, "Rose told me it might be quiet here, but it's even better, there's n.o.body at all!"

The gas lamps on the stairs had been lit, but the ones near the street doors were out. Neither Sandy nor Laura wondered about this unguarded entrance; they only embraced it as an opportunity to be alone. They stopped to kiss, Laura with her back to the wall. They broke apart when they heard running footsteps on the stairs, but then, when no one appeared, they melted together again.

"I wish I'd known more of the dances," Sandy said.

"But Captain Goodnough's Useful Guide to Ballroom Dances says that good taste forbids a lady to dance too frequently with one partner."