"About eight years ago my mother became ill-her mind started going. She began having these attacks of insanity. She'd be perfectly calm and normal one moment and the next she'd be screaming and crying and carrying on something terrible. It was frightening."

Ari, avoiding Spence's eyes, drew a long shaky breath and continued.

"There was nothing to be done for her. Daddy took her to all the top doctors in the country. No one could help her. Oh, it was awful. We never knew when another attack would come, and they got worse and worse as time went on. She would run away sometimes and it would be days before we found her again. She wouldn't know where she'd been or what she'd been doing or anything.

"Gradually her good periods shrank away and we couldn't watch her anymore. Daddy was up for the promotion to director and wanted to accept the job-it was his life's goal. There was nothing to be done for Mother but put her in an institution. She's been there ever since."

"But why let everyone think she was dead?"

"I don't know. It just seemed easier at first, telling people that… Then they don't ask questions. It was Daddy's idea, really. 1 think he couldn't stand the idea that Mother would never be right again. He preferred having the uncertainty settled one way, or the other.

"Then, after it got started we couldn't very well tell everyone that she was really alive. So we kept it up. I think Daddy was a little afraid that if anyone on the Board ever found out different there'd be an investigation and the whole thing would come out." "Would he lose his directorship?"

"I don't know. Maybe-if someone wanted his blood badly enough and there was a scandal or something."

Adjani, eyes narrowed, had listened to every word Ari said without moving a muscle. "When did she tell you about the Dream Thief?"

"Oh, I don't know. That was what she always told me when she wanted me to be good. She said if I didn't behave the Dream Thief would get me. Like the bogeyman or something. Later, when I was a little older, she'd put me to bed and say, 'Don't let the Dream Thief get you,' like that. It was just something she said. I didn't know where it came from.

"One time I asked her about it. She said she'd heat I ii,clip-ii she was a little girl in India. There was some kind of superstition connected with it, but she didn't know or remember what it was."

"That was all she told you?" asked Adjani. He peered at her over his laced fingers.

"That's all. She ordinarily didn't talk much about India and growing up. I gather she didn't like it there very much. She was sick a lot as a little girl-once, when she was twelve she almost died. She was in a coma for a month."

"How did this happen?"

"Fever, maybe. She never said." Ari, more at ease now that the secret was out, glanced at her inquisitors and asked, "Is this important, do you think?"

"It may be," said Spence. Adjani nodded. "See, when you mentioned those words to me in the garden yesterday something snapped-like a rubber band stretched too tight. I had never heard of this Dream Thief and then here, both my best friends were talking about him. It seemed like too much of a coincidence."

Ari cast a questioning look at Adjani. He answered it, admitting, "Yes, I know about the Dream Thief. But what I know goes beyond children's tales of bogeymen and superstition." He told Ari the story he had heard on his visit to his homeland, and related the things he had seen.

When he finished Ari shook her head. "No wonder you nearly japed out of your skin. I don't blame you. I would have, too."

You couldn't have known what you were saying," Spence soothed. "But it still doesn't add up at all. Instead of arriving at an answer we seem to be creating more questions, more loose ends."

Adjani shrugged. "That is to be expected. Difficult problems are not solved by easy answers. Very likely we will have to work very hard to penetrate this mystery.

"Where do we start? It seems like we're kind of out on a branch right now."

"Rue, you cannot go back to your lab just yet-not with those two skulking around," said Ari.

"Perhaps it would be best to follow the thread Ari has given us," said Adjani, "to see where it will lead."

"Where does it lead? The only other person I can see that would know anything about any of this is Ari's mother. You don't mean that we should-"

Adjani nodded. "Precisely. I believe we must pay Mrs. Zanderson a visit."

… OLMSTEAD PACKER SAT HEAVILY in his chair reading the latest findings of a battery of tests which had been carried out in his absence. He grumbled and muttered into the bushy red beard, regarding the material with sour muttered seemed that, from the evidence, nothing had gone right while he was away; it would all have to be done over again.

He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee from a jug on a bookshelf overflowing with magcarts, printouts, and stacks of coded discs. A chiming tone sounded from a wedgeshaped instrument in his desk and a clear, crisp voice announced, "Dr. Packer, there is a gentleman waiting to see you, He's from an investigation firm."

"Oh?" That sounded interesting. "Send him in. I've got nothing to hide."

Almost before he could set the jug down and turn around, the panel of the outer office slid open and a large egg-shaped object glided into the room. It was a pneumochair and in it sat a skeleton of a man grinning a deathly grin at him which chilled Packer like a sudden icy blast.

"Professor Packer?" said the skeleton as the chair came to hover a few inches from the edge of his desk.

"Yes. I'd ask you to have a seat, but I see you already have." The skeleton laughed. "Very good. I'll have to remember that one."

"What can I do for you?" Packer dropped back into his seat and folded his hands on the desk.

"I am from the United Federal Insurance Group, investigation division."

Packer raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Something needs investigating?"

"That is what I'd like to find out. " The man in the chair tilted his head to one side, studying the physicist behind the desk. "I believe you know Dr. Spencer Reston, do you not?"

"Why, yes. Yes, I do. That is, before the accident."

"Accident?., The skeleton man's eyes narrowed. "Could you tell me about it, please?"

Packer hesitated, his large hands fumbling over one another on his desk. The insurance investigator noticed the man's reluctance and said, "Oh, I assure you this is not a formal investigation. I was merely making our quarterly audit-you can understand that with an account this big, well-" He rolled his eyes to include the whole of the space station. "And someone mentioned the loss of one of our insureds – that is, one of your staff members. I merely thought that while I was here I might as well do a prelim and save some time later. No doubt a claim will be filed in due course and our company will schedule a formal inquiry. But… I'm sure you understand."

Packer nodded uncertainly. He was not sure he should tell this investigator anything at all, but figured a refusal would arouse undue suspicion where there was none to begin with. Besides, something about the investigator made him nervous and a little suspicious. He decided, out of loyalty to Adjani, to stick to the story he and Adjani had agreed upon.

Packer cleared his throat. "Well, he wasn't one of my staff members."

"Oh? He was on the research trip, correct?"

"Correct. But he belonged to a different division-BioPsych, I believe."

"But you were party leader, were you not?"

"Yes, of course. But that is not at all unusual. Often members of other divisions are invited along. As many as transport space will allow."

"I see. Do you know what happened to Dr. Reston?"