indicating his fat friend. “The Confederal Department of Examination is interested in your case.”
“What case?” the girl demanded.
“And young Delbit here has come all the way from Philadelphia, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to help diagnose your problem. He will help us monitor your dreams, and with his aid, perhaps we can learn to prevent these nightmares you’ve been having.”
“This is the help you’ve been promising me? This boy?” She glanced disdainfully at Delbit before fastening her gaze on Dr. Faineworth.
Delbit was not insulted by this reaction. He would have felt the same way himself, he was sure, in her place. But he would help her if he could. He silently promised her that. It seemed clear that Dr. Faineworth had no intention of doing so. Edbeck from the Confederal Government? Ridiculous! He was too short for the CDE. And he wasn’t wearing a hat! What the doctor was after was unclear to Delbit, but it clearly was not an unmitigated desire to help this girl.
“I shall help you,” Dr. Faineworth assured her, speaking to her slowly and patiently as one would to a balky child. “But first I must know what to do. Remember, a doctor swears to do no harm. I have to better understand your case—your situation—before I can be sure that what I do is for your good. I have only your good in mind. It is clear that your bad dreams are somehow associated with your disappearances. We must study those dreams. This boy Delbit, here, can help us. He is a useful tool, nothing more. You must not get upset at his presence.”
Thanks a lot, Delbit thought. But he said nothing.
“No more than at yours,” the girl told Faineworth.
“That is not the right attitude to take,” Dr. Faineworth told her. “We are here to help you, after all.”
“Let me be on my way, if you want to help.”
“On what way?” Faineworth asked smoothly. “You don’t know who you are, or where you’re from, or what you’re doing here. You don’t even know your right name.”
“I know that if you leave me alone, I’ll be better off,” the girl told him.
Edbeck advanced toward the girl and sat on the edge of the cot next to her. “Tell us where you go when you disappear from here,” he said, taking her hand, “and how you do it. The CDE wants to know.”
“I’ve told you before,” the girl said in a tired voice. She removed her hand from Edbeck’s grasp, but made no attempt to move away. Where was there to go? “I don’t know how I do it. And the other place—where I go when I disappear from here—seems to be nothing but a forest in all directions, with a wide river about a mile from where I appear.”
“Is it a place you dream about?” Edbeck asked.
The girl shook her head. “No,” she said. “My dreams are all—populated. This place is not.”
“So,” Dr. Faineworth said. “You go to the same place each time?”
“I seem to,” the girl agreed.
“We will talk more about this,” Faineworth said.
“I want to get out of here,” the girl told him.
“Your request will be forwarded to the proper authorities,” Faineworth told her. “In the meantime, please bear with me. I am trying to help you regain your memories.”
“I haven’t much choice, it seems,” the girl said. “Please have the guard bring my clothes.”
“That I will do,” Faineworth agreed.
“Did you notice the girl’s reaction when I told her you were from the CDE?” Faineworth asked Edbeck as they walked back to the office.
“I wondered why you did that,” Edbeck commented. “But the girl had no reaction that I could see.”
“That’s it!” Faineworth said. “She seems to have good recall for events and facts outside of her direct life—a common syndrome in amnesia. Yet she reacted to the CDE not at all. Most people react strongly to any mention of our government’s most secret police—apparent strong approval masking cringing fear. But our Exxa seems ignorant of the existence of the organization.”
“That is so,” Edbeck agreed. “What does it mean?”
“That my theory may be correct. That young lady may not be from around here.”
“This city?” Edbeck enquired.
“This universe,” Faineworth replied.
* * * * * * *
At four o’clock the next morning Dobbins came to Delbit’s room and shook him awake. “Come,” he said.
Delbit groggily slipped into his pants and shirt and pulled his boots on. “Where?” he asked.
“Downstairs. The doctor wants you.”
Dr. Faineworth was waiting impatiently in his office. “Are you fully awake?” he asked Delbit. “Come, sit here. Have a muffin. Prepare to go to work.”
Delbit took the plate of muffins and buttered one. “Work?” He looked fuzzily about the room. “I don’t think I’m awake. It takes me a while to wake up in the morning. And it’s not even morning.”
“Have some coffee. Do you drink coffee? It will wake you up. Dobbins, get him some coffee. Here, put a lot of cream in it.”
Delbit sipped at the coffee and ate his muffin. “What—?” he said, and then paused, considering what to ask.
“What are we all doing up at this hour?” Dr. Faineworth rubbed his hands together. “This is the true witching hour, my lad—the dreaming hour. For most of the night we sleep soundly, dreamlessly; but during the early-morning hours we begin to dream. You and I are going now to capture one or more of those dreams. Finish your coffee.”
“Yes, sir.” Delbit drank up his coffee and stared impassively into the immediate future like a man examining the edge of a cliff he is about to leap off.
Dr. Faineworth looked up at the clock on his far wall and strummed his fingers on the desk. “All right. Enough coffee. Enough time wasted,” he said a couple of minutes later. He took off his suit jacket and wrapped a white laboratory smock around himself. “Let us see about entering the land of dreams. Come with me.”
Delbit was taken to a small, white-painted room down the corridor. “Exxa is asleep in the next room,” Faineworth told him. “We call it the sleep research room. She wears a special helmet, with built-in electrodes. You will don a similar one, and lie down here.” The doctor indicated a black leather couch in the center of the room. “But you will not sleep. You will receive mental images through this device here”—the doctor pointed to a large black box that was humming ominously in the corner—“and report back to me on them. Is this not quite simple? Good. Now lie down.”
With a feeling that might have been shared by St. Barnabas as he prepared to face four hungry lions, Delbit lay down and allowed them to strap the leather helmet to his head.
CHAPTER
