The Dreaming Dragons Part 5

'The field activates in 20 seconds. Don't hesitate to cut loose if the experience is unbearable.'

Bill delFord ceased to exist.

The universe stopped at a concave sweep a couple of metres overhead. Flickeringly, internal lights came on, dimly, with a faint buzzing. Vestibular ca.n.a.ls signalled vertigo, free fall, acceleration. A sharp scent of sweat and urine moved in the air. n.o.body home.

Abruptly, tinnily, a ma.s.sed choir of male and female voices cried joyously: _Halleluiah, Halleluiah, hal-le-ee-loo-oo-ya!_ An elephant trumpeted, and a bloodhound belled. The imperative hoot of a fire-siren, a pompous British voice clearing its throat and saying, 'Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking', the sc.r.a.pe of many chairs as a mult.i.tude made good its escape, a symphony of cash-registers, a speeded-up j.a.panese voice saying, 'My feet are getting closer', a lavatory flushing, and a moist, protracted, lubricious fart.

In the incredulous silence, there was a strangled, hysterical gasp.

'Our Farter, Which art in Heaven -- '

Peals of silly giggles.

'Fart for art's sake.'

'Sewerealism?'

Booming guffaws, like drunken oafs.

'Don't talk such s.h.i.t.'

'You taking the p.i.s.s out of me?'

'What a b.u.mmer, it's just pouring out.'

Bill delFord did not exist, but some wiring diagram thought in desperation, This is no proper pastime for a philosopher. We need -- ' -- Sir Karl p.o.o.per.'

'"The Open Society and Its Enemas"?'

A shriek of drawn-out laughter. 'No. That's Jean-Paul Farter.' A pause. 'The existenchilist.'

'She was only a stable-hand but all the horse manure.'

'That's a handic.r.a.p.'

'Golf? Prefer the s.h.i.t-put.'

'Never made the elimination-finals.'

'Team was pruned down.'

Pain in the chest, in the diaphragm.

'Clear your head with Diarretics.'

'Diuretics?'

's.h.i.tology. t.u.r.domancy. Movement of the future.'

'A tissue of lies.'

'Wipe the Opposition.'

'Support the t.u.r.d World.'

'Sounds like fecism.'

'Troops in jake-boots? Flushing out the Privy Council? Establishing the Dung Dynasty? You're potty!'

The foolish giggles came in convulsive, uncontrollable waves. Finally they ceased, and bodies rolled in their harnesses, hands knocking against sweat-slicked flesh and, finding it, touching, palping. Legs kicked and opened.

'Lapp me.'

More silly giggles, in the swaying, terrible nowhere, and a shockingly blatant sound of slurping.

The universe returned, in a deluge to crack the head. Bill delFord screamed, piteously, and clamped palms over ears, elbows striking together. He was elevated; the light of souls beyond souls, crystalline glory, intolerable hubbub of infinite conversation; white radiance enclosed him, lifting him in a moment from his body which hung below in the silvery bubble (but that was gone already), showed him with his mouth slack and inane tears of mirth under his eyelids, his arms moving out to batter the woman beside him who turned, her thighs spreading in invitation and the other man shifting in weightlessness to bring down his head; all of this in an instant, imploding; and he fell back into his body, aghast, bereft, clinging to the spheres of endless light...

The astronaut lifted his face in stupefaction and humiliation, banging his head against the wire frame. Anne moaned, and her face filled with a deeper flush. Groaning, Bill reached up and took the phone in his hand. He hurled it with great force across the floor of the dome. His stomach ached abominably.

'If you're still hungry,' he said, 'let's go eat lunch.'

Lapp ignored the jibe. Glancing from the shattered phone to delFord and back to Anne, his face tightened with delayed understanding. 'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be silly,' Anne told him. Lightly, with affection, she jabbed his arm, swinging down out of the cradle. 'Par for the course. Here at Huxley, we're famous for letting it all hang out.'

Obliquely, Bill added: 'Ancient history.'

'What he means is, we had a little fling and that was that. Nice while it lasted, though.' She gave Bill a friendly hug. 'Hugh, how did the subjective effects compare to your previous test?'

Instantly Lapp was all business. 'The out-of-body phenomena, virtually identical. All that cretinous punning? Totally new. Frankly, I'm astonished. My jokes might be pretty bad, but kindergarten humour hasn't broken me up like that since I was four years old. What in h.e.l.l happened?'

They paid no attention to Harrington, who hopped anxiously from foot to foot, trying without success to insert his suddenly irrelevant technical questions. General Sutton remained aloof on the far side of the test area, isolated by his manifest disapproval of the proceedings. Bill shivered, and slipped his feet into his battered Indian sandals. The dome was solar-warmed, but even in California the chill of winter leaked into a large enough convecting s.p.a.ce. 'Not kindergarten, Hugh,' he said thoughtfully. 'Small children don't know the names of too many philosophers of science. Good grief. Sir Karl p.o.o.per indeed!'

'I agree,' Anne said. 'That wasn't clinical regression. I think it was something more frightening than that -- as though our brains were switched off. No, that's not right. As if conscious awareness was closed down, I felt as if my mind were functioning at the level of a, an indexing program. Pulling pieces of data out of memory and juxtaposing them on the instruction of some puerile subroutine triggered by your G.o.dd.a.m.n crude farting phone.'

'A network node,' Lapp mused. 'Operating mechanically, without any true intelligence. Certainly without a trace of mature judgment.' He scratched at his head, a curiously childlike gesture. 'But why should external shielding screw up the brain's interior software? Or hardware. Whichever.'

'By golly, I think maybe my hunch was correct all along,' Bill said with wonderment. 'We've proved Carl Jung right. The gluon field literally cut us off from the collective unconscious. It left us isolated. Absolutely severed from the rest of humanity. Just the three of us to anchor one another, linked in a hermetically sealed bubble...'

The technicians, he noticed, were jockeying for advantage, staring with blatant enthusiasm at Anne's naked body. He glanced down at his own uninspiring belly.

'I think we'd better get our pants on,' he said in a low voice. 'Dwayne would really be p.i.s.sed if the Vice Squad put the arm on us at this point.'

*5. California*

At three in the morning, the hour the beasts in tight leather boots prefer when they come to take you away, Bill delFord roused blurrily to the sharp knock on his door. Selma's regular breathing had not altered. He lay on his back, the formless dread of nightmare slowly ebbing. In dream, he reminded himself hazily, the voluntary muscles relax entirely. Occasionally the sense of paralysis leaks through, permeating dream with the terrors of captivity, threat, claustrophobia. Yet that inchoate sensation can also trigger tranquil illusions of levitation, he thought, of floating, of leaving the mundane body ... His heart jumped, hammering, as the brisk knocking was repeated.

Jesus, he thought. Selma stirred, grumbling, as he reached for the small digital clock beside the bed. 3:07. I'll kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, he thought in rage. His wife's bare leg was hot against his; the disparity in their nocturnal temperatures was a cause of wonder to him, and of annoyance when he woke in the night -- it made the re-entry to sleep doubly difficult. He was half out of bed when the door opened quietly and his son Ben looked in.

'For you, Dad,' the boy said laconically. 'He insisted.'

'Thanks, son,' Bill muttered. He pulled his old threadbare Chinese gown about his shoulders and padded from the room, closing the door behind him. The boy stood uneasily in the hall. 'Go back to bed, Ben. I'll tell you all about it in the morning.'

The uniform was not one Bill recognised. He poked at the grit in the corners of his eyes and glared angrily. 'Do you have any idea what hour -- '

'My apologies, Dr delFord,' the man said in a low clear voice. 'General Sutton sends his compliments. Could you dress as quickly as possible? We have a chopper standing by in Monterey to take you to the Air Force base in San Jose, where you'll meet a UN courier jet.'

DelFord's temper lost its last strand. 'You can tell Sutton to take a flying f.u.c.k at the -- ' A heavy boot blocked the closing door.

'I'm sorry, sir, but my instructions are clear. We don't have time for arguments.'

There was a sound of footsteps and another figure came out of the darkness. 'At ease, soldier. There's no need to hara.s.s the doctor.' The man stepped into the dim illumination provided by the night-light. Bill recognised him: Bryant Gellner, an ex-colleague from UCLA. He wore the dark suit and deft protocol of a UN diplomat. 'I'm sorry to wake you, Bill.' He extended his hand. 'You're looking well for a man pulled out of bed at this G.o.dless hour. I was caught on the cell phone or I'd have done the honours myself. Very well, driver, you can wait for us in the car. We shouldn't be long.'

'Bryant, you presume on our acquaintance,' Bill said without grace. 'I'd gladly invite you in for a drink if the sun wasn't over the yard arm somewhere in the Indian Ocean. What the h.e.l.l's Sutton playing at this time?'

'The general's in New York at this moment and he's not getting any sleep either. In fact,' Gellner smiled, 'I imagine you're four or five hours ahead of him in that respect. If we can bid the doorstep farewell I'll explain everything in the comfort and privacy of your own home.'

'Aw s.h.i.t.' A distant shimmering danced at the limits of Bill's sensations, an invisible flickering, an inaudible buzz. It increased as he pa.s.sed the silent telephone. In an illogical flash of insight he conjectured that he was perceiving the 50-cycle hum of the electrical devices and conduits in the house. Something had rasped his nervous system to an irritated, preternaturally acute sensitivity. That dream, he thought suddenly. It was the gluon field. The blank eternity of inhuman nothing, the explosion of light, the experience of floating out and away from my body. 'Sit down,' he told the diplomat, pulling out a kitchen chair. 'I'll fix coffee.'

'Thank you.' Bryant Gellner was impatient, but he had clearly decided that compliance was the swiftest road to persuasion. 'I trust we didn't wake your wife.'

As he took milk from the refrigerator, Bill saw for an instant a fuzzy wash of violet light like ocean phosph.o.r.escence at its back. 'She's literally slept through earthquakes,' he said. 'Why can't it wait?'

'I don't know,' the UN man said frankly. 'But whatever it is, I have a hunch there are lights going on all over the War Room Big Board.'

The nuclear shield, Bill told himself. Pouring coffee, he was mildly surprised to find himself so calm. I've lived on the San Andreas fault for years at a time without breaking into a sweat. Maybe this is the same.

'A pre-emptive strike? I thought they were our friends now. Not the Chinese, surely?'

'I don't _want_ to know,' Gellner said, his hungry eyes denying it. 'There's a very curious UN flap on, very contained, very tight. None of the hoopla of a ritual scare. I doubt that it's the big one, but someone's remembered leaving the kerosene near the fire. That's a Mach 3 bird they have waiting for you at San Jose. I hope your circadian rhythms are in good shape.'

DelFord stood up. 'Do I need an overcoat?'

'A light suit would be fine.' The diplomat smiled sweetly. 'It's summer down there.'

'Good Christ.'

He woke Selma as he was leaving. 'Big silver bird kidnaps your w.i.l.l.y. I don't know how long I'll be gone. The mad b.a.s.t.a.r.ds seem to think it's urgent, so I'll doubtless find myself perched on my a.s.s in the middle of Chile twiddling my thumbs for a week. Then they'll decide they meant the other Bill delFord and pack me off home with a set of scenic views and no explanation. I'll call you soonest.' He kissed her, tweaked her fleshy b.u.t.tocks fondly as he leaned across to turn off the lamp, and departed regretfully. At Ben's door he paused for a moment, and was dumbfounded by the light snores he heard. Adolescents, he thought, shaking his head. Gellner had preceded him out of the house; Bill went into the chilly night air and found the grey limousine, all its lights out, parked several houses away.

The diplomat opened a back door for him. A gla.s.s part.i.tion sealed the pa.s.sengers off from the driver, presumably a security device. As his hand touched the vehicle's frame, Bill sensed a mild, soapy texture against his fingers. He stepped back, rapped on the driver's window.

'You've got a short from the battery,' he informed the soldier. 'There's current leaking into the bodywork.'

The driver looked at him steadily and said nothing. Shrugging, Bill climbed in next to Gellner.

'It's a complex heterodyning signal, sir,' the soldier's voice said from a grille in the part.i.tion. 'Pink noise. It neutralises bugs, and scrambles maser detection spy-beams bounced off the vehicle.'

DelFord turned and stared at Gellner. 'Golly,' he said. 'Isn't it exciting?'

The helicopter lift to the Air Force base did nothing to improve his mood. He hated the rowdy, clamouring things. After the effortless, nearly silent limousine, the chopper's vulgarity was an affront to the sleeping night. Falling toward earth, they slipped over rows of similar machines waiting neatly for the next convenient opportunity to spray human flesh with flaring petroleum jelly.

A stern, blue-garbed officer met them outside a grey concrete building. He wore a gun at his belt. Gellner tendered doc.u.ments which were examined routinely. 'Good morning, gentlemen. Mr Gellner, you're requested to call New York. Just go right through.'

They strode along a brightly lit green-grey corridor that managed to convey the dullness of blight. The place was first cousin to every military structure Bill had ever seen; it nauseated him. The diplomat made his call under an opaque plastic privacy hood. A wizened gnome, cap grimy and askew, told delFord that his courier was fuelled and ready for take-off. Gellner returned. 'All clear. I'll see you off.'

In a small bay at the back an electric runabout awaited them, English postbox red. The gnome gestured them in. His collar appeared damp; it drooped. Somehow, in spite of the smooth efficient motor, he managed to make the machine lurch. The five-hundred-metre ride to the jet's cruel wedge was no less eventful. Bill found himself grinning. Although they crossed perfectly flat tarmac, the little man was able to create the impression that they were galloping over rubble or worse.

They climbed out under a sweptback t.i.tanium wing and the red vehicle veered into reverse. The gnome sped off without a word, bucking as he went. There was just the merest hint, through the cold dark wind, of a derisive belch.

'Is he always like that?'

'So it's said.' Gellner stood at the foot of the access steps, gazing after the little machine in admiration. 'It's his way of deflating the pomposity of bureaucrats and the vanity of the nation's favourite sons. He's a dear old thing. I believe he shot two saboteurs dead a few years back while they were trying to plant a bomb in Air Force One. Radical maintenance men, if you can credit such a thing.' He gave delFord a bland glance and offered his firm handshake.

'I see.' Bill grinned at him. 'I'll try not to defect.'

The polished fuselage was innocent of portholes. Inside, cunning ergonomics engineering had contrived a mahogany conference table flanked by soft-backed stools bolted to the deck. Aft, six comfortable layback chairs faced a series of flat monitors and recessed keyboards. No doubt there was a bar tucked away in there somewhere. Seated in one of the chairs, bleary eyed and friendly, was the astronaut Hugh Lapp. His chin was penumbral. Bill checked his watch and nodded to himself with furtive pleasure. The stigmata was, indeed, very nearly five-o'clock shadow.

'Ah, the cunnilingual Captain.'

'Greetings, sage.' The astronaut patted the padded chair next to him. 'Strap in, we lift off in 30 seconds.'

Bill glanced around, blinked as the hatch was closed and sealed from the outside. 'Just us chickens?' He dropped heavily beside Lapp. A red warning light blinked above the bank of monitors. The roar of engines, which had been increasing since he'd entered the jet, reached a screaming crescendo. A sudden pressure on his torso thrust him back into his yielding seat. The tremor of vibration was gone, and the pressure increased.

'You might enjoy watching this,' Lapp said belatedly pushing a b.u.t.ton. One of the screens brightened, revealing the geometry of runway lights falling away vertically at fantastic speed. Somehow the display seemed more real, in the ambience of this surrealistic exercise, than any direct view through the double-glazing of a porthole.

Maybe only what we take for granted seems real through a window, Bill mused. The extraordinary seems more natural when it comes to us via an instrument. Television tells us of war and catastrophe in exotic lands. It shows us men in clumsy suits kangarooing upon the moon. The only exciting things I've ever seen through a window, he thought, amused, were my big sister's big t.i.ts when I was twelve.

Curiously, Lapp chose that moment to say: 'It's not the same, is it, Bill? We can up the magnification' -- he twiddled a k.n.o.b, and the distant lights slurred and expanded giddyingly -- 'or put it through an infrared transducer, with image enhancement' -- and the image leaped into slightly discoloured clarity, the suburbs knife-edged in their ranks -- 'but it's not the same as a raw eyeball. You get the feeling it's all being patched together in a studio.'

Fortunately Bill's neutral grunt was not taken as disagreement, or the younger man might have gone on to defend his opinion. As it was, Bill felt a brief sad sentiment of loss, as though in this gap between them the generational abyss had deepened. Ludicrously, it summoned an echo of that hateful, ineluctable failure of sympathy he detected in his relationship with Ben, child of his late middle age, the severing one by one of those precious links of deep fellow-feeling which had once existed between father and son. Others would grow to replace that earlier, simpler trust, he knew, but there was enough truth in Freud's shrewd conjectures to spoil forever the comradely myths of more archaic dynasties. For a moment the strands of his reverie wound together, in an almost hallucinatory visual memory of the astronaut's embarra.s.sed face lifting from Anne's lewd embrace.

The jet levelled out at 20,000 metres. This data was provided on a digital readout, which stated as well that their indicated air-speed was 2900 klicks, roughly Mach 3 at their alt.i.tude. Lapp unbuckled his seat-belt as a green light flashed. 'We've got good weather all the way until we reach the turbulence at the Rock.'

'You seem to know a h.e.l.l of a lot more about it than I do,' Bill said tiredly. The Rock of Gibraltar? The Libyans have seized it and towed it out to sea, threatening global sea trade. The single weapon proof against the anti-nuclear screen. And they've done it with heinous astral thought projections. 'Does your advance knowledge extend to the location of the drinkies? I could use a bourbon.'

Lapp went forward, opened a panel beside the terminal, returned with Bill's bourbon and a st.u.r.dy measure of Southern Comfort for himself. 'That was a freaky experience this morning. Yesterday morning.'

The instant relaxation Bill felt was clearly a psychological effect, since the alcohol had not had time to diffuse through his bloodstream. 'Hugh, I'd rather we talked about our destination.'

'Sure. Let me tell you a story. What you're about to hear is known to less than a thousand people in the entire world. The decision authorising this briefing has been ratified by the Presidents of the United States and Russia.' Lapp was, suddenly, no longer the boy s.p.a.ceman; a note of command had entered his voice.

'I'm all ears.'