But Narlena was looking at him again the way she had earlier, speculatively, curiously. Her eyes caressed him, and her body moved involuntarily with a gentle swaying motion. She-and how many other of her people? — still had a yearning to experience a physical reality during their Wakings. Endless years of Dreaming couldn't provide everything.

He grinned broadly at the thought. Narlena interpreted this as a welcoming grin. She rose from her lotus position in a single graceful motion, walked over to him, and stood looking down at him. Then she flowed down onto him. Her nimble fingers began stroking and caressing him, occasionally drifting downward toward his genitals.

Even if there had been any reason for Blade to hold back his arousal, he would have found it almost impossible to do so. Those small hands were maddeningly skilled and maddeningly arousing as they did their gentle dance along his neck, down his back, across his chest and stomach, and then between his legs. He became fully, massively erect.

Now his own hands began tracing their own pattern on her limber body. They traced each joint of her spine under the petal-smooth skin of her back, cupped the firm buttocks, and wandered over the smooth, glistening thighs to the blue black pubic triangle, already turning damp as her arousal mounted in time with his. Then his hands moved upward, over the flat belly, and his palms rose up under the small, firm breasts, feeling the nipples harden into stiff little rods, hearing her moan, and seeing her bite her lip and begin a slow writhing. Still writhing, she lifted herself and lowered herself down onto his upstanding organ, enveloping it in her slick, almost dripping canal. She stiffened as he entered her and began a slow up-and-down motion, lifting herself slightly with her hands pressing down on his thighs.

Her movements were slow and steady at first, but they quickened as she, pushed herself faster and faster toward climax. She could hardly have been more absorbed in her own pleasure if Blade had not been there at all. Her eyes were closed and only flickered open briefly when he put his arms around her and began using his muscular arms and shoulders to help her rise and fall. Her control slipped away. Her hands ceased their pushing and began a frantic and uncontrolled drumming on his skin.

She climaxed, jerking and writhing uncontrollably in rapid succession. Then she sagged in Blade's arms. No longer worried about his endurance or her satisfaction he kept raising and lowering her until his own fierce pulsing came.

His throat dry and chest heaving, he lowered the inert Narlena to the floor and lay down beside her for a moment. Then he opened the vault door, went out to retrieve his weapons, closed the door behind him, and lay back down. For the time being he had reached as much comfort and safety as he seemed likely to get in this dimension. Before going out again, he would have to get Narlena to fill in all the blank spaces in his picture of what had happened and was happening in the city of Pura. But he could do that just as well after they had slept. It was time for a Little Dream, he thought with a wry grin that stayed on his face as he dozed off.

Blade and Narlena slept snuggled against each other on the fur-covered floor of her vault. When they awoke, many hours later, Blade knew that in the city above it must be well into morning. But as much as he wished to see and explore Pura by daylight, he wished even more to explore the mystery of its people and their Dreams. Narlena was willing enough to talk, and Blade was more than willing to listen to the long answers she gave to his brief questions. In a surprisingly short time all the gaps were filled in, and he had a complete picture of the fate of Narlena's people, at least as she understood it. While they were talking, Narlena produced breakfast by pressing a button in what she called a food-maker and served the result. The soft, sweet, crumbly breadlike cake and the almost tasteless liquid were blatantly synthetic and depressingly dull.

Some five hundred years before, the people of Pura had discovered the basic art of stimulating the senses by using direct brain-computer links. Blade wondered if in the process of discovering this art and learning to control it, they had sent any unsuspecting subjects off into other dimensions. But they had learned to control the linkages bit by bit, and that had been the foundation for Pura's greatest-and last-achievement.

About two hundred years before, they had discovered the methods of recording and simulating specific sets of sensations. Soon it became possible to put these sensations together into complete stories, which were incredibly complex and totally realistic as long as one was hooked up. They could satisfy any possible or impossible fantasy that one could harbor in one's waking mind.

But even then Pura was not doomed. No matter how much of one's sleeping hours one spent Dreaming, one still had to spend a certain amount of time awake for eating, washing, exercising, and generally carrying out the necessary business of staying alive. Even those wealthy enough not to need jobs could not spend all their time Dreaming.

Then somebody invented the life-sustaining gas and all the life-support equipment that went with it. It became possible to spend years on end in the Dreams; the periods of Waking were reduced to only a few days to «test» one's body for signs of physical deterioration.

Within a few years everybody was working just enough to be able to spend the rest of the time Dreaming. A man would work six months, then go to a public Dream House, climb into a vault, and for the next six months be a wandering minstrel or knight from the city's ancient history or travel among the stars as one might in the far future. The only people who had to work all the time were the Dream-builders, who developed and recorded new Dreams, the vault masters, who, prepared the vaults, and the life-support technicians, who maintained and improved the machinery that kept the Dreamers alive and healthy.

Pura had been wealthy, and few if any had ever gone hungry or homeless. But nearly two-thirds of the city's population could scrape together enough money for only an occasional Dream session, no matter how hard they worked. They resented this. As the wealthy slipped more and more into their Dream worlds and cared less and less about running Pura, the poor became discontented, even violent. The security forces were enlarged, and their salaries were increased to handle this threat. But as soon as the security troops had enough money to become full-time Dreamers, the city was left to the gangs that were beginning to be known as Wakers.

Within a single generation Pura had sunk from a flourishing city to a decaying jungle, where men reduced almost to the level of wild animals stalked and slew each other and any Dreamers bold or curious enough to venture out into the real world. Health, transportation, and the food supply broke down-famine and epidemic raged unchecked.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to carry out any major project. Before it became completely impossible, however, the leaders of the Dreamers faced the crisis and came up with what they expected to be a solution. Build Dream vaults, one for each willing and interested person, with life-support equipment, recorded dreams, food, and power to last for centuries. Make the vaults so strong that nothing short of the weapons of the ancient and half-legendary War Period could damage or open them, and put them all over the city. Then each person could climb into his private vault and stay there until the Waker gangs in the city above ate each other up and it was safe to come out. The life-support equipment and power supply had become so reliable that one needed to Wake for one's tests only every twenty years or so.