Heather moved the fingers of her left hand in a tiny circle on the resilient, grainy surface of the armchair, the stuff that had once been the skin of a living animal, the intermediate surface between a cow and the universe. The tune of the old record they had played yesterday came into her head and wouldn’t get out again.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can’t tell you, but I know it’s mine....

She wouldn’t have thought that Haber could hold still, keep silent, for so long. Only once, his fingers flicked out to a dial. Then he stood immobile again, watching the blank wall.

George sighed, raised a hand sleepily, relaxed again, and woke. He blinked and sat up. His eyes went at once to Heather, as if to make sure she was there.

Haber frowned, and with a jumpy, startled movement pushed the lower button of the Augmentor. “What the hell!” he said. He stared at the EEG screen, still jigging with lively little traces. “The Augmentor was feeding you d-state patterns, how the hell did you wake up?”

“I don’t know.” George yawned. “I just did. Didn’t you instruct me to wake soon?”

“I generally do. On the signal. But how the hell did you override the pattern stimulation from the Augmentor.... I’ll have to increase the power; obviously been going at this too tentatively.” He was now talking to the Augmentor itself, there was no doubt of it. When that conversation was done he turned abruptly on George and said, “All right. What was the dream?”

“Dreamed there was a picture of Mount Hood on the wall there, behind my wife.”

Haber’s eyes flicked to the bare redwood-paneled wall, and back to George.

“Anything else? An earlier dream—any recall of it?”

“I think so. Wait a minute... I guess I dreamed that I was dreaming, or something. It was confused. I was in a store. That’s it—I was in Meier and Frank’s buying a new suit, it had to have a blue tunic, because I was going to have a new job, or something. I can’t remember. But anyhow, they had a guide sheet that told you what you ought to weigh if you’re so tall, and vice versa. And I was right in the middle of both the height scale and the weight scale for average-build men.”

“Normal, in other words,” Haber said, and suddenly laughed. He had a huge laugh. It startled Heather badly, after the tension and the silence.

“That’s fine, George. That’s just fine.” He clapped George on the shoulder, and began taking the electrodes off his head. “We have made it. We have arrived. You’re in the clear! Do you know it?”

“I believe so,” George replied mildly. “The big load’s off your shoulders. Right?”

“And onto yours?’

“And onto mine. Right!” Again the big, gusty laugh, a little overprolonged. Heather wondered if Haber was always like this, or was in a state of extreme excitement.

“Dr. Haber,” her husband said, “have you ever talked to an Alien about dreaming?”

“An Aldebaranian, you mean? No. Forde in Washington tried out a couple of our tests on some of ‘em, along with a whole series of psychological tests, but the results were meaningless. We simply haven’t licked the communications problem there. They’re intelligent but Irchevsky, our best xenobiologist, thinks they may not be rational at all, and that what looks like socially integrative behavior among humans is nothing but a kind of instinctual adaptive mimicry. No telling for sure. Can’t get an EEG on ‘em and as a matter of fact we can’t even find out whether they sleep or not, let alone dream!”

“Do you know the term iahklu’?”

Haber  paused momentarily.   “Heard  it.  It’s  untranslatable. You’ve decided it means ‘dream,’ eh?”

George shook his head. “I don’t know what it means. I don’t pretend to have any knowledge you haven’t got, but I do think that before you go on with the, with the application of the new technique, Dr. Haber, before you dream, you ought to talk with one of the Aliens.”

“Which one?” The flick of irony was clear.

“Any one. It doesn’t matter.”

Haber laughed. “Talk about what, George?”

Heather saw her husband’s light eyes flash as he looked up at the bigger man. “About me. About dreaming. About iahklu’. It doesn’t matter. So long as you listen. They’ll know what you’re getting at, they’re a lot more experienced than we are at all this.”

“At what?”

“At dreaming—at what dreaming is an aspect of. They’ve done it for a long time. For always, I guess. They are of the dream time. I don’t understand it, I can’t say it in words. Everything dreams. The play of form, of being, is the dreaming of substance. Rocks have their dreams, and the earth changes.... But when the mind becomes conscious, when the rate of evolution speeds up, then you have to be careful. Careful of the world. You must learn the way. You must learn the skills, the art, the limits. A conscious mind must be part of the whole, intentionally and carefully—as the rock is part of the whole unconsciously. Do you see? Does it mean anything to you?”

“It’s not new to me, if that’s what you mean. World soul and so on. Prescientific synthesis. Mysticism is one approach to the nature of dreaming, or of reality, though it’s not acceptable to those willing to use reason, and able to.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” George said without the least resentment, though he was very earnest. “But just out of scientific curiosity, then, at least try this: before testing the Augmentor on yourself, before you turn it on, when you’re starting your autosuggestion, say this: Er’ perrehnne. Aloud or in your mind. Once. Clearly. Try it.”

“Why?”

“Because it works.”

“‘Works how?”

“You get a little help from your friends,” George said. He stood up. Heather stared at him in terror. What he had been saying sounded crazy—Haber’s cure had driven him insane, she had known it would. But Haber was not responding—was he?—as he would to incoherent or psychotic talk.

“Iahklu’is too much for one person to handle alone,” George was saying, “it gets out of hand. They know what’s involved in controlling it. Or, not exactly controlling it, that’s not the right word; but keeping it where it belongs, going the right way.... I don’t understand it. Maybe you will. Ask their help. Say Er’ perrehnne before you... before you press the ON button.”

“You may have something there,” Haber said. “Might be worth investigating. I’ll get onto it, George. I’ll have one of the Aldebaranians from the Culture Center up and see if I can get some information on this.... All Greek to you, eh, Mrs. Orr? This husband of yours should have gone into the shrink game, the research end of it; he’s wasted as a draftsman.”  Why did he say that? George was a parks-and-playgrounds designer. “He’s got the flair, he’s a natural. Never thought of hooking the Aldebaranians in on this, but he might just have a real idea there. But maybe you’re just as glad he’s not a shrink, eh? Awful to have your spouse analyzing your unconscious desires across the dinner table, eh?” He boomed and thundered, showing them out. Heather was bewildered, nearly in tears.

“I hate him,” she said fiercely, on the descending spiral of the escalator. “He’s a horrible man. False. A big fake!” George took her arm. He said nothing. “Are you through? Really through? You won’t need drugs any more, and you’re all through these awful sessions?”

“I think so. He’ll file my papers, and in six weeks I should get a notice of clearance. If I behave myself.” He smiled, a little tiredly. “This was tough on you, honey, but it wasn’t on me. Not this time. I’m hungry, though. Where’ll we go for dinner? The Casa Boliviana?”

“Chinatown,” she said, and then caught herself. “Ha-ha,” she added. The old Chinese district had been cleared away along with the rest of downtown, at least ten years ago. For some reason she had completely forgotten that for a moment. “I mean Ruby Loo’s,” she said, confused. George held her arm a little closer. “Fine,” he said. It was easy to get to; the funicular line stopped across the river in the old Lloyd Center, once the biggest shopping center in the world, back before the Crash. Nowadays the vast multilevel parking lots were gone along with the dinosaurs, and many of the shops and stores along the two-level mall were empty, boarded up. The ice rink had not been filled in twenty years. No water ran in the bizarre, romantic fountains of twisted metal. Small ornamental trees had grown up towering; their roots cracked the walkways for yards around their cylindrical planters. Voices and footsteps rang overclearly, a little hollowly, before and behind one, walking those long, half-lit, half-derelict arcades.