Perchance to Dream, Page 2

themachines that carried them all around in the city; held with theplumbing and the theatres and all the intricate mechanisms that spoke tothem and fed them, that washed them and poured thoughts into theirminds, that healed them when they were sick and rested them when theywere tired. The same as they were held with the great dome. Held andshackeled with the replacing of parts that didn't need replacing; themaking over and over again of the tiny and large pieces of themechanisms and the taking of the old mechanisms and the melting of themor smashing of them to powder so that this dust or molten metal could befashioned again and again into the same pieces that they had been for somany thousands of years. All this to keep them busy? All this to keepsomething outside that was supposed to be destructive because once ithad been so five thousand years ago or ten or fifty? All this becausethat was the way it had been for as long as the hundreds and thethousands of years that history had been recorded?

  He walked on through the silence, dimly aware now of the people movingabout him, of the automobiles rolling past, as though moved by someinvisible force. He passed row upon row of movie theatres that called tohim with invisible vibrations. He turned away.

  Where was the little man?

  He stopped, moving only his eyes. After a moment, he saw the little manstep out of a shop-front and stand waiting. Twenty-three, a cigarette inhis mouth, walked over and asked for a light. The little man touched alighter to the cigarette, at the same time dropping a packet of cardsinto Twenty-three's pocket.

  Twenty-three moved on. He felt the pounding of his heart. If only hiswife were asleep so he would not have to wait to look at these newcards.

  As he walked, his thoughts cried out against the silence. He glancedsuspiciously from side to side. If only he could hear the sounds of thecity. But except for human voices and music, the city had always beensilent. The human voices spoke only words written by the Superfathers,and the music came from records that had been composed by them--all thisback when the city had first come into being. Other than these soundsthere could be only the quiet all around. No chugging motors or scrapingfootsteps. No crashing engines in the sky, or pounding of steel onstone. No shrieking of factory whistles or clanging steeple bells orhonking automobile horns. None of this to pluck and pound at nerves, tosuggest that this place was not the most soothing and gentle of allplaces to be in. There were no winds to swirl and moan away into thedistance. The chirp of birds had long since been stilled, and so had thepatter of rain and the crash of thunder. There must not be any of thesesounds either to lure the imagination into some distance where dangerand excitement might be waiting.

  Now he was walking toward the door of his apartment house. It swungopen. Thirty seconds later he stopped before another door. It too swungopen.

  His wife stood in the middle of the room, between two traveling bags. Hemoved slowly toward her and stopped just out of arm's reach.

  "What's this?" He gestured toward the bags. "Where're you going?"

  She stared at him for a long moment, her face set. She was of his heightand build and wore a suit the same light grey as his. Their hair cutswere identical, their faces sharp featured and pale. They might havebeen brother and sister--or two brothers, or two sisters.

  "I'm going to the marriage center."

  "What for?" He had tried to inject surprise into his voice. But the tonewas listless.

  "The Superfather called about your dream."

  Twenty-three turned away, lighted a cigarette. He should beg her tostay, should promise to change. But the silence was in him, like asickness.

  "A terrible thing's happening to you. I don't want any part of it." Shepicked up the bags. "When you come to your senses, you know where toreach me.... _If_ I haven't already made another contract, I _might_come back to you."

  She hesitated at the door.

  "There's one thing I don't understand. You haven't begged me to stay.You haven't broken down. You haven't threatened suicide." She paused."It's standard procedure, you know. It might even make me decide to waitawhile."

  "I don't want you to stay," he said. He felt a shock of surprise. It wasas though a voice had spoken from behind him.

  He watched the door shut between them.

  * * * * *

  Dressed in his pajamas, he stood beside the metal tube, in which for somany years he had slept his regulation sleep and dreamed his regulationdreams. There was something of the finely made casket about thistube--the six foot length and three foot diameter; the lid along its topand the dull shine of the metal and the quiet of it, as though it wereasleep and lying in wait for a tired body to bring it awake so that itcould put the body to sleep and live in the dreams it would give to thesleeper.

  Beside his own tube stood its twin, where his wife had also slept anddreamed through the years.

  Leaning slightly forward, he felt the press of metal against his hipbones, felt the tube roll an inch with his weight. He rested one hand onthe metal top, felt its warmth and smoothness, was aware of itscleanness, like that of a surgical instrument.

  Now he glanced at the glistening black panel that stood two feet high atthe tube's head; quickly checked its four illuminated dials and threegleaming arrows and at the same time raised his hand to drop the cardsinto the softly glowing slot at the panel's top.

  Suddenly his hand stopped.

  He bent forward.

  What was this? A feeling of strangeness. Vague. Like sensing some subtlechange in a picture that has hung for twenty years above the fireplacein one's home.

  He drew closer, squinting. The dials and meters seemed to be the same asthey had yesterday and the day before and the year before.

  And yet?

  The dials. Larger? By a fraction? And the tiny gleaming arrows of themeters. Barely longer? And the marks on the dials and meters? One extraeach, very faintly, like a piece of hair.

  He was very still for a long moment. Then he moved around the foot ofhis own sleeping tube, pushed between the two and stood at the head ofthe other one.

  He checked its dials and meters. They were as they had been for manyyears. He stepped back to the panel of his own and pressed a button. Asthe glistening metal top rose, silently, he ran his hand around theyawning interior, felt the downy softness and the body-like warmth. Thenhis hand touched a pliable metal plate. That should not be there. Hestood back, remembering the workmen who had come into the house thatmorning for the routine checkup of the tubes. His wife had already leftfor work and he had just stepped through the door when they had met himin the corridor. They had gone on into the rooms and he had sensedvaguely that something was wrong. Then he had put the feeling out of hismind and gone to his work.

  Now suddenly, he turned to the illuminated four inch square panel abovethe door, read April 15, 2563. The workmen had checked a day early. Hefrowned. Either the Superfather had ordered the machine changed, whichwas highly improbable, because every object in the city was standardizedand any change would upset the established order, or the workmen weretied up with the man who had given him the different dream cards.... Inany event he had to sleep in the tube that night and he definitelywanted to dream the dreams on the cards he had just gotten from the manon the corner.

  He dropped the cards into the slot at the top of the panel, climbed intothe tube and pressed a button. The top closed over him, like a hand. Helay still, feeling the warm clasp wash over his body. There was darknessand silence and a cool motion of antiseptic air. He could try the firstdream. If it wasn't right, he could shut it off and sleep withoutdreams.

  He pressed another button.

  Silence.

  The sound of his regular breathing.

  Then a sighing came into his mind, and a green haze. The sighing becamea soft breeze; the green, tree-covered hills rolling off to the horizon.He relaxed, aware in a fading, sinking part of his consciousness thatthe machine worked as usual. He would dream and wait and hope....

  And so the wind was breathing across the land from off a vast stretch ofblue water,
which broke along a sandy beach in foamy white breakers. Thesurf thundered all through his body. The wind brushed against him like agreat, purring cat. He looked up at the blue sky and seemed to feelhimself rising and sinking, both at the same time, up into its depths.As his sight touched the sun there was an explosion of brightness whichblinded him. He turned away then to the rolling green sea of hills, sawthe trees bending from the surge of wind and heard the rustling ofleaves.

  And then a deep voice moved through his mind.

  "Outside the city," it said, "all this exists. During the terribleburning of the Earth back in the wars of its antiquity, the city wasbuilt as a place of life for those who yet lived. But those people werenot aware that the Earth would come alive again and they made the cityso that no death could enter it from without and no life could escapefrom within. And they turned away from the Earth and lived only with thecity so that it became their