The CONJURER of VENUS

The city dripped with rain. Crossing the street toward the dive, Johnson got rain in his eyes, his nose, and his ears. That was the way with the rain here. It came at you from all directions. There had been occasions when Johnson had thought the rain was falling straight up. Otherwise, how had the insides of his pants gotten wet?

On Venus, everything came at you from all directions, it seemed to Johnson. Opening the door of the joint, it was noise instead of rain that came at him, the wild frantic beat of a Venusian rhumba, the notes pounding and jumping through the smoke and perfume clouded room. Feeling states came at him, intangible, but to his trained senses, perceptible emotional nuances of hate, love, fear, and rage. But mostly love. Since this place had been designed to excite the senses of both humans and Venusians, the love feelings were heavily tinged with straight sex. He sniffed at them, feeling them somewhere inside of him, aware of them but aware also that here was apprehension, and plain fear.

Caldwell, sitting in a booth next to the door, glanced up as Johnson entered but neither Caldwell's facial expression or his eyes revealed that he had ever seen this human before. Nor did Johnson seem to recognize Caldwell.

"Is the mighty human wanting liquor, a woman or dreams?" His voice was all soft syllables of liquid sound. The Venusian equivalent of a headwaiter was bowing to him.

"I'll have a tarmur to start," Johnson said. "How are the dreams tonight?"

"Ze vill be the most wonserful of all sonight. The great Unger hisself will be here to do ze dreaming. There is no ozzer one who has quite his touch at dreaming, mighty one." The headwaiter spread his hands in a gesture indicating ecstasy. "It is my great regret that I must do ze work tonight instead of being wiz ze dreamers. Ah, ze great Unger hisself!" The headwaiter kissed the tips of his fingers.

"Um," Johnson said. "The great Unger!" His voice expressed surprise, just the right amount of it. "I'll have a tarmur to start but when does the dreaming commence?"

"In one zonar or maybe less. Shall I make ze reservations for ze mighty one?" As he was speaking, the headwaiter was deftly conducting Johnson to the bar.

"Not just yet," Johnson said. "See me a little later."

"But certainly." The headwaiter was gone into the throng. Johnson was at the bar. Behind it, a Venusian was bowing to him. "Tarmur," Johnson said. The green drink was set before him. He held it up to the light, admiring the slow rise of the tiny golden bubbles in it. To him, watching the bubbles rise was perhaps more important than drinking itself.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" a soft voice said. He glanced to his right. A girl had slid into the stool beside him. She wore a green dress cut very low at the throat. Her skin had the pleasant tan recently on Earth. Her hair was a shade of abundant brown and her eyes were blue, the color of the skies of Earth. A necklace circled her throat and below the necklace ... Johnson felt his pulse quicken, for two reasons. Women such as this one had been quickening the pulse of men since the days of Adam. The second reason concerned her presence here in this place where no woman in her right mind ever came unescorted. Her eyes smiled up at him unafraid. Didn't she know there were men present here in this space port city who would snatch her bodily from the bar stool and carry her away for sleeping purposes? And Venusians were here who would cut her pretty throat for the sake of the necklace that circled it?

"They are beautiful," he said, smiling.

"Thank you."

"I was referring to the bubbles."

"You were talking about my eyes," she answered, unperturbed.

"How did you know? I mean...."

"I am very knowing," the girl said, smiling.

"Are you sufficiently knowing to be here?"

For an instant, as if doubt crossed her mind, the smile flickered. Then it came again, stronger. "Aren't you here?"

Johnson choked as bubbles from the tarmur seemed to go suddenly up his nose. "My dear child ..." he sputtered.

"I am not a child," she answered with a firm sureness that left no doubt in his mind that she knew what she was saying. "And my name is Vee Vee."

"Vee Vee? Um. That is...."

"Don't you think it's a nice name?"

"I certainly do. Probably the rest of it is even nicer."

"There is no more of it. Just Vee Vee. Like Topsy, I just grew."

"What the devil are you doing here on Venus and here in this place?"

"Growing." The blue eyes were unafraid.

Sombrely, Johnson regarded her. What was she doing here? Was she in the employ of the Venusians? If she was being planted on him, then his purpose here was suspected. He shrugged the thought aside. If his purpose here was suspected, there would be no point in planting a woman on him.

There would only be the minor matter of slipping a knife into his back.

In this city, as on all of Venus, humans died easily. No one questioned the motives of the killer.

"You look as if you were considering some very grave matter," Vee Vee said.

"Not any longer," he laughed.

"You have decided them?"

"Yes."

"Every last one of them?"

"Oh, there might be one or two matters undecided somewhere, say out on the periphery of the galaxy. But we will solve them when we get to them." He waved vaguely toward the roof and the sky of space hidden behind the clouds that lay over the roof, glanced around as a man eased himself into an empty stool on his left. The man was Caldwell.

"Zlock!" Caldwell said, to the bartender. "Make it snappy. Gotta have zlock. Finest damn drink in the solar system." Caldwell's voice was thick, his tongue heavy. Johnson's eyes went back to the girl but out of the corner of them he watched Caldwell's hand lying on the bar. The fingers were beating a quick nervous tattoo on the yellow wood.

"I haven't seen him," Caldwell's fingers beat out their tattoo. "But I think he is, or was, here."

"Um," Johnson said, his eyes on Vee Vee. "How—"

"Because that girl was asking for him," Caldwell's fingers answered. "Watch that girl!" Picking up the zlock, he lurched away from the bar.

"Your friend is not as drunk as he seems," Vee Vee said, watching Caldwell.

"My friend? Do you mean that drunk? I never saw him—"

"Lying is one of the deadly sins." Her eyes twinkled at him. Under the merriment that danced in them there was ice. Johnson felt cold.

"The reservations for ze dreaming, great one?" The headwaiter was bowing and scraping in front of him. "The great one has decided, yes?"

"The dreaming!" Vee Vee looked suddenly alert. "Of course. We must see the dreaming. Everyone wants to see the dreaming. We will go, won't we darling?" She hooked her hand into Johnson's elbow.

"Certainly," Johnson said. The decision was made on the spur of the moment. That there was danger in it, he did not doubt. But there might be something else. And he might be there.

"Oh. But very good. Ze great Unger, you will love him!" The headwaiter clutched the gold coins that Johnson extended, bowed himself out of sight.

"Say, I want to know more—" Johnson began. His words were drowned in a blast of trumpets. The band that had been playing went into sudden silence. Waves of perfume began to flow into the place. The perfumes were blended, but one aroma was prominent among them, the sweet, cloying, soul-stirring perfume of the Dreamer.

In the suddenly hushed place little sounds began to appear as Venusians and humans began to shift their feet and their bodies in anticipation of what was to happen.

The trumpets flared again.

On one side of the place, a big door began to swing slowly open. From beyond that slowly opening door came music, soft, muted strains that sounded like lutes from heaven.

Vee Vee, her hand on Johnson's elbow, rose. Johnson stood up with her. He got the surprise of his life as her fingers clenched, digging into his muscles. Pain shot through his arm, paralyzing it and almost paralyzing him. He knew instantly that she was using the Karmer nerve block paralysis on him. His left hand moved with lightning speed, the tips of his fingers striking savagely against her shoulder.

She gasped, her face whitened as pain shot through her in response to the thrust of his finger tips. Her hand that had been digging into his elbow lost its grip, dropped away and hung limp at her side. Grabbing it, she began to massage it.

"You—you—" Hot anger and shock were in her voice. "You're the first man I ever knew who could break the Karmer nerve paralysis."

"And you're the first woman who ever tried it on me."

"But—"

"Shall we go watch the dreaming?" He took the arm that still hung limp at her side and tucked it into his elbow.

"If you try to use the Karmer grip on me again I'll break your arm," he said. His voice was low but there was a wealth of meaning in it.

"I won't do it again," the girl said stoutly. "I never make the same mistake twice."

"Good," Johnson said.

"The second time we break our victim's neck," Vee Vee said.

"What a sweet, charming child you—"

"I told you before, I'm not a child."

"Child vampire," Johnson said. "Let me finish my sentences before you interrupt."

She was silent. A smile, struggling to appear on her face, seemed to say she held no malice. Her fingers tightened on Johnson's arm. He tensed, expecting the nerve block grip again. Instead with the tips of her fingers she gently patted his arm.

"There, there, darling, relax," she said. "I know a better way to get you than by using the Karmer grip."

"What way?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Eve's way," she answered.

"Um!" Surprise sounded in his grunt. "But apples don't grow on Venus."

"Eve's daughters don't use apples any more, darling. Come along."

Moving toward the open door that led to the Room of the Dreaming, Johnson saw that Caldwell had risen and was following them. Caldwell's face was writhing in apprehensive agony and he was making warning signs. Johnson ignored them. With Vee Vee's fingers lightly patting his arm, they moved into the Room of the Dreaming.

II

It was a huge, semi-illumined room, with tier on tier of circling ramps rising up from an open space at the bottom. There ought to have been a stage there at the bottom, but there wasn't. Instead there was an open space, a mat, and a head rest. Up at the top of the circling ramps the room was in darkness, a fit hiding place for ghosts or Venusian werewolves. Pillows and a thick rug covered the circling ramps.

The soul-quickening Perfume of the Dreamer was stronger here. The throbbing of the lutes was louder. It was Venusian music the lutes were playing. Human ears found it inharmonious at first, but as they became accustomed to it, they began to detect rhythms and melodies that human minds had not known existed. The room was pleasantly cool but it had the feel of dampness. A world that was rarely without pelting rain would have the feel of dampness in its dreaming rooms.

The music playing strange harmonies in his ears, the perfume sending tingling feelings through his nose, Johnson entered the Room of the Dreamer. He suspected that other forces, unknown to him, were catching hold of his senses. He had been in dreaming rooms many times before but he had not grown accustomed to them. He wondered if any human ever did. A touch of chill always came over him as he crossed the threshold. In entering these places, it was as if some unknown nerve center inside the human organism was touched by something, some force, some radiation, some subtlety, that quite escaped radiation. He felt the coldness now.

Vee Vee's fingers left off patting his arm.

"Do you feel it, darling?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"How would I know?"

"Please!" Her voice grew sharp. "I think Johnny Johnson ought to know."

"Johnny! How do you know my name?"

"Shouldn't I recognize one of Earth's foremost scientists, even if he is incognito on Venus?" Her voice had a teasing quality in it.

"But—"

"And who besides Johnny Johnson would recognize the Karmer nerve grip and be able to break it instantly?"

"Hell—"

"John Michael Johnson, known as Johnny to his friends, Earth's foremost expert in the field of electro-magnetic radiations within the human body!" Her words were needles of icy fact, each one jabbing deeper and deeper into him.

"And how would I make certain you were Johnny Johnson, except by seeing if you could break the Karmer nerve grip? If you could break it, then there was no doubt who you were!" Her words went on and on.

"Who are you?" His words were blasts of sound.

"Please, darling, you are making a scene. I am sure this is the last thing you really want to do."

He looked quickly around them. The Venusians and humans moving into this room seemed to be paying no attention to him. His gaze came back to her.

Again she patted his arm. "Relax, darling. Your secrets are safe with me."

A gray color came up inside his soul. "But—but—" His voice was suddenly weak.

The fingers on his arm were very gentle. "No harm will come to you. Am I not with you?"

"That's what I'm afraid of!" he snapped at her. If he had had a choice, he might have drawn back. But with circumstances as they were—his life, Caldwell's life, possibly Vee Vee's life hung in the balance. Didn't she know that this was true? And as for Martin—But Caldwell had said that she had been asking about Martin. What connection did she have with that frantic human genius he sought here?

Johnson felt his skin crawl. He moved toward a nest of cushions on a ramp, found a Venusian was beating him to them, deftly changed to another nest, found it. Vee Vee flowed to the floor on his right, moved cushions to make him more comfortable. She moved in an easy sort of way that was all flowing movement. He sat down. Someone bumped him on the left.

"Sorry, bud. Didn't mean to bump into you." Caldwell's voice was still thick and heavy. He sprawled to the floor on Johnson's left. Under the man's coat, Johnson caught a glimpse of a slight bulge, the zit gun hidden there. His left arm pressed against his own coat, feeling his own zit gun. Operating under gas pressure, throwing a charge of gas-driven corvel, the zit guns were not only almost noiseless in operation but they knocked out a human or a Venusian in a matter of seconds.

True, the person they knocked unconscious would be all right the next day. For this reason, many people did not regard the zit guns as effective weapons, but Johnson had a fondness for them. The feel of the little weapon inside his coat sent a surge of comfort through him.

The music picked up a beat, perfume seemed to flow even more freely through the air, the lights dimmed almost to darkness, a single bright spotlight appeared in the ceiling, casting a circle of brilliant illumination on the mat and the headrest at the bottom of the room. The curtain rose.

Unger stood in the middle of the spot of light.

Johnson felt his chest muscles contract, then relax. Vee Vee's fingers sought his arm, not to harm him but running to him for protection. He caught the flutter of her breathing. On his left, Caldwell stiffened and became a rock.

Johnson had not seen Unger appear. One second the circle of light had been empty, the next second the Venusian, smiling with all the impassivity of a bland Buddha, was in the light. He weighed three hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce, he was clad in a long robe that would impede movement. He had appeared in the bright beam of the spotlight as if by magic.

Vee Vee's fingers dug deeper into Johnson's arm. "How—"

"Shhh. Nobody knows."

No human knew the answer to that trick. Unless perhaps Martin—

Unger bowed. A little ripple of something that was not quite sound passed through the audience. Unger bowed again. He stretched himself flat on the mat, adjusted the rest to support his head, and apparently went to sleep. Johnson saw the Dreamer's eyes close, watched the chest take on the even, regular rhythm of sleep.

The music changed, a slow dreamy tempo crept into it. Vee Vee's fingers dug at Johnson's arm as if they were trying to dig under his hide for protection. She was shivering. He reached for her hand, patted it. She drew closer to him.

A few minutes earlier, she had been a very certain young woman, able to take care of herself, and handle anyone around her. Now she was suddenly uncertain, suddenly scared. In the Room of the Dreaming, she had suddenly become a frightened child looking for protection.

"Haven't you ever seen this before?" he whispered.

"N—o." She shivered again. "Oh, Johnny...."

Under the circle of light pouring down from the ceiling, the Dreamer lay motionless. Johnson found himself with the tendency to hold his breath. He was waiting, waiting, waiting—for what? The whole situation was senseless, silly, but under its apparent lack of coherence, he sensed a pattern. Perhaps the path to the far-off stars passed this way, through such scented and musical and impossible places as these Rooms of the Dreamers. Certainly Martin thought so. And Johnson himself was not prepared to disagree.

Around him, he saw that the Venusians were already going ... going ... going.... Some of them were already gone. This was an old experience to them. They went rapidly. Humans went more slowly.

The Venusian watchers had relaxed. They looked as if they were asleep, perhaps in a hypnotic trance, lulled into this state by the music and the perfume, and by something else. It was this something else that sent Johnson's thoughts pounding. The Venusians were like opium smokers. But he was not smoking opium. He was not in a hypnotic trance. He was wide awake and very much alert. He was ...

watching a space ship float in an endless void.

As Unger had come into the spotlight, so the space ship had come into his vision, out of nowhere, out of nothingness. The room, the Dreamer, the sound of the music, the sweetness of the perfume, Vee Vee and Caldwell were gone. They were no longer in his reality. They were not in the range of his vision. It was as if they did not exist. Yet he knew they did exist, the memory of them, and of other things, was out on the periphery of his universe, perhaps of the universe.

All he saw was the space ship.

It was a wonderful thing, perhaps the most beautiful sight he had seen in his life. At the sight of it, a deep glow sprang inside of him.

Back when he had been a kid he had dreamed of flight to the far-off stars. He had made models of space ships. In a way, they had shaped his destiny, had made him what he was. They had brought him where he was this night, to the Dream Room of a Venusian tavern.

The vision of the space ship floating in the void entranced and thrilled him. Something told him that this was real; that here and now he was making contact with a vision that belonged to time.

He started to his feet. Fingers gripped his arm.

"Please, darling. You startled me. Don't move." Vee Vee's voice. Who was Vee Vee?

The fingers dug into his arm. Pain came up in him. The space ship vanished. He looked with startled eyes at Vee Vee, at the Dream Room, at Unger, dreaming on the mat under the spot.

"You ... you startled me," Vee Vee whispered. She released the grip on his arm.

"But, didn't you see it?"

"See what?"

"The space ship!"

"No. No." She seemed startled and a little terrified and half asleep. "I ... I was watching something else. When you moved I broke contact with my dream."

"Your dream?"

He asked a question but she did not answer it. "Sit down, darling, and look at your damned space ship." Her voice was a taut whisper of sound in the darkened room. Johnson settled down. A glance to his left told him that Caldwell was still sitting like a chunk of stone.... The Venusians were quiet. The music had shifted. A slow languorous beat of hidden drums filled the room. There was another sound present, a high-speed whirring. It was, somehow, a familiar sound, but Johnson had not heard it before in this place.

He thought about the space ship he had seen.

The vision would not come.

He shook his head and tried again.

Beside him, Vee Vee was silent, her face ecstatic, like the face of a woman in love.

He tried again for the space ship.

It would not come.

Anger came up instead.

Somehow he had the impression that the whirring sound which kept intruding into his consciousness was stopping the vision.

So far as he could tell, he was the only one present who was not dreaming, who was not in a state of trance.

His gaze went to Unger, the Dreamer....

Cold flowed over him.

Unger was slowly rising from the mat.

The bland face and the body in the robe were slowly floating upward!

III

An invisible force seemed to twitch at Johnson's skin, nipping it here and there with a multitude of tiny pinches, like invisible fleas biting him.

"This is it!" a voice whispered in his mind. "This is what you came to Venus to see. This ... this...." The first voice went into silence. Another voice took its place.

"This is another damned vision!" the second voice said. "This ... this is something that is not real, that is not possible! No Venusian Dreamer, and no one else, can levitate, can defy the laws of gravity, can float upward toward the ceiling. Your damned eyes are tricking you!"

"We are not tricking you!" the eyes hotly insisted. "It is happening. We are seeing it. We are reporting accurately to you. That Venusian Buddha is levitating. We, your eyes, do not lie to you!"

"You lied about the space ship!" the second voice said.

"We did not lie about the space ship!" the eyes insisted. "When our master saw that ship we were out of focus, we were not reporting. Some other sense, some other organ, may have lied, but we did not."

"I—" Johnson whispered.

"I am your skin," another voice whispered. "I am covered with sweat."

"We are your adrenals. We are pouring forth adrenalin."

"I am your pancreas. I am gearing you for action."

"I am your thyroid. I...."

A multitude of tiny voices seemed to whisper through him. It was as if the parts of his body had suddenly found voices and were reporting to him what they were doing. These were voices out of his training days when he had learned the names of these functions and how to use them.

"Be quiet!" he said roughly.

The little voices seemed to blend into a single chorus. "Action, Master! Do something."

"Quiet!" Johnson ordered.

"But hurry. We are excited."

"There is a time to be excited and a time to hurry. In this situation, if action is taken before the time for it—if that time ever comes—we can all die."

"Die?" the chorus quavered.

"Yes," Johnson said. "Now be quiet. When the time goes we will all go together."

The chorus went into muted silence. But just under the threshold the little voices were a multitude of tiny fretful pressures.

"I hear a whirring sound," his ears reported.

"Please!" Johnson said.

In the front of the room Unger floated ten feet above the floor.

"Master, we are not lying!" his eyes repeated.

"I sweat...." his skin began.

"Watch Unger!" Johnson said.

The Dreamer floated. If wires suspended him, Johnson could not see them. If any known force lifted him, Johnson could not detect that force. All he could say for certain was that Unger floated.

"Yaaah!" The silence of a room was broken by the enraged scream of a Venusian being jarred out of his dream.

"Damn it!" A human voice said.

A wave as sharp as the tip of a sword swept through the room.

Unger fell.

He was ten feet high when he started to fall. With a bone-breaking, body-jarring thud, the Dreamer fell. Hard.

There was a split second of startled silence in the Dreaming Room. The silence went. Voices came.

"Who did that?"

"What happened?"

"That human hidden there did it! He broke the Dreaming!" Anger marked the voices. Although the language was Venusian, Johnson got most of the meaning. His hand dived under his coat for the gun holstered there. At his left, Caldwell was muttering thickly. "What—what happened? I was back in the lab on Earth—" Caldwell's voice held a plaintive note, as if some pleasant dream had been interrupted.

On Johnson's right, Vee Vee seemed to flow to life. Her arms came up around his neck. He was instantly prepared for anything. Her lips came hungrily against his lips, pressed very hard, then gently drew away.

"What—" he gasped.

"I had to do it now, darling," she answered. "There may not be a later."

Johnson had no time to ask her what she meant. Somewhere in the back of the room a human screamed. He jerked around. Back there a knot of Venusians were attacking a man.

"It's Martin!" Caldwell shouted. "He is here!"

In Johnson's hand as he came to his feet the zit gun throbbed. He fired blindly at the mass of Venusians. Caldwell was firing too. The soft throb of the guns was not audible above the uproar from the crowd. Struck by the gas-driven corvel charges, Venusians were falling. But there seemed to be an endless number of them.

"Vee Vee?" Johnson suddenly realized that she had disappeared. She had slid out of his sight.

"Vee Vee!" Johnson's voice became a shout.

"To hell with the woman!" Caldwell grunted. "Martin's the important one."

Zit, zit, zit, Caldwell moved toward the rear, shooting as he went. Johnson followed.

A voice boomed through the room, in Venusian. "Let movement stop!"

At the sound of that voice the Venusians stopped all motion.

Again the voice boomed through the room.

"Bring the human to me."

The voice came from Unger.

The knot of Venusians around the human came back to life. A knife flashed.

"Bring him to me unharmed!" Unger boomed.

The knife went hastily out of sight. The knot of Venusians came untangled. They carried a struggling human down the ramps toward the bottom of the pit.

"It's Martin!" Caldwell shouted. "Let's knock these Venusians over, grab him, and break for the door."

"Hold it," Johnson said. "It may not be that easy. We will go with them to Unger."

Carrying Martin to the bottom of the pit, the Venusians set him on his feet. Martin was tall, dark-haired, a slender length of living, nervous whipcord. His hair was tousled, his clothing torn. As Martin came to his feet, Johnson saw that blood was running down one side of his face.

Unger was standing erect. His 300 pounds radiated anger, rage, hate.

"Dreamer, he had a thing which the humans call a camera or a recorder." The speaker, an elderly Venusian, was outraged. He jerked a knife from its scabbard. "Dreamer, allow me the privilege of slitting his throat!" He held the knife high, awaiting only the signal to plunge it into Martin's neck.

A fierce throb of anger seemed to flow through the Room of the Dreaming.

"All things in their time," Unger said. "Do you hold your knife for now."

The fingers of the Venusian trembled as he slipped the knife back into its scabbard.

"Dreamer, I obey. But remember, when the time comes, the privilege is mine. I spoke first!" Hot anger sounded in the Venusian's voice.

"It will be remembered, Taldero," Unger said. He lifted his gaze. "Bring me this camera, this thing that the human was using."

A Venusian carried the camera down the steps and handed it to Unger. While the Venusians had never denied humans entry to the dreaming rooms, any kind of a camera or other recording device had always been strictly forbidden. Neither argument, persuasion nor offers of payment had ever moved a Dreamer to permit the recording of a dream performance. Under his breath, Johnson cursed. The recorder was evidence that could not be denied. "The fool!" Johnson cursed.

Unger took the device and examined it.

"Hmmmm." His eyes sought Martin. "This is not only a camera, it is a very complex and compact recording device designed to make a permanent record of the sights, sounds, and many of the other vibratory frequencies present in this room."

"Well—" Martin said.

"There is no point in attempting to deny it. The object speaks for itself. Why did you bring this recording device into the Room of the Dreaming?" Unger's words were hard and cold.

"No excuse!" Martin's words were hot. "Just a single question: Why are they forbidden in these rooms?"

"Why?" Unger's voice suddenly lost its certainty.

Martin's voice continued. "Why have you kept this information from us humans? Is it because these Dreaming Rooms, and the act of dreaming as practiced by you Venusians, is nothing but a hypnotic device, a trick used to cheat fools of their money?"

"It—"

"Fraud!" Martin shouted. The word seemed to roar through the room.

Unger lost his poise. The Venusian seemed to writhe, to squirm, to twist as if some unseen and invisible force was torturing him.

Johnson moved forward. Caldwell went with them. Martin saw them for the first time.

"Johnny! Caldwell! Where did you come from?"

Johnson's eyes were centered on Unger. The zit gun in his hand was poised and aimed at the eyes of the Venusian.

"If anyone makes a move toward us, the charge in this gun will go into your eyes," Johnson said. "I suppose you know that under such circumstances the charge from a zit gun will kill."

Unger stopped his squirming. He seemed suddenly to realize that other humans were present. His round, impassive face turned toward Johnson.

"Ah, yes, you," he said.

"Call off your dogs," Johnson said. "Tell these people to permit us to leave."

"But—"

"You look at death, Dreamer!"

"I know that. Death is not important. Have you considered that these dogs are really wolves who will tear you to pieces at my nod?" Unger's shifting gaze indicated the other Venusians in the room. Out of the corners of his eyes Johnson saw that Taldero had drawn his knife again. Others were moving like jungle cats getting ready to pounce.

"True, you can have your wolves kill us," Johnson said. "But our deaths will follow yours, not precede it."

His voice was clear and firm. If there was fear in him it was out of sight. He did not know how much most of the Venusians were understanding of what he was saying but one thing they certainly understood—the zit gun in his hand.

"We are going out of here," Johnson said. "You are going with us as a hostage. Our lives for your life."

Unger lifted his hand. "One minute, if you please. There are questions I want to ask. Who is this man?" He gestured toward Martin.

"A very renowned human scientist."

"Ah, and what is he doing on Venus?"

"Don't tell him!" Caldwell spoke sharply. "It's none of his business."

"It might be some of my business if I knew," Unger said.

Warning voices were urging Johnson away from this place, screaming at him to get away while he had the chance. Inside of him, tiny voices were shouting warnings, his skin was reporting sweat again, his brain was reporting the pressure of an emotional overload. Inside of him was still another voice insisting that here he dealt with illusion and hallucination, shouting at him, "You saw a space ship where no space ship could exist! In this place how can you determine reality?"

The expression on the face of the Venusian was very strange but it was some kind of a smile. Seeing it, Johnson hesitated, spoke impulsively. "We three are a group of human scientists who have come to Venus to ..." he hesitated.

"Damn it, Johnny!" Caldwell gritted.

"Tell him, Johnny," Martin spoke. "There may be more involved in telling him than we know. The recordings will tell."

"We came here to investigate the dreaming," Johnson spoke.

"Ah," Unger said. Shades of feelings played across his face. "You are the three humans who came asking about the dreaming! I have heard of you."

"We asked for information, knowledge, understanding," Johnson's voice got hard again. "We sought these things. What did we get?"

"You asked for bread and we dreamers gave you a stone," Unger spoke.

"What?" Johnson gasped. The shift to a religious framework startled him. He had not thought that a Venusian understood such things.

"Perhaps the stone we gave you was more palatable than the bread you asked for," Unger continued.

"But—"

"However, when your request was denied, you did not stop seeking?" Unger asked.

"Of course not! We don't belong to a race that stops seeking. We sought other ways to get the information."

"Is the information important to you?"

"Yes."

"What luck did you have with the other ways?"

Johnson shook his head. Bitterness came up in him. "None. The Dreaming Rooms were everywhere, the Dreamers were a group apart. The Dreamers would not talk. No other Venusian ever admitted knowing anything."

"And so—"

"One of us, the most impetuous and perhaps the most brilliant of us, became impatient." Imperceptibly Johnson nodded toward Martin. "We knew there was danger in the Dreaming Rooms. He ignored that danger. He slipped away from us. I think perhaps he hid from us to protect us from the danger he intended to face. We discovered that possibly he had come here tonight. We did not know for sure that he was here until a Venusian discovered the recorder in operation."

Martin stepped forward and took the recorder from Unger's hands. The Venusian released it without reluctance.

"So you came here tonight to find and help a friend?" Unger said.

"Yes. He is impetuous and impatient. He wants answers."

"And I've got 'em right here." Martin clutched the recorder in a tighter grip. "Let's get out of this joint. I want to see what these wires have on them. Come on, Johnny. You cover that Dreamer and we will take him with us—"

"One instant more," Unger spoke. "What was the vision that you saw?" He addressed Johnson.

"A—"

"Eeeeeeeh!" A woman's scream ripped through the room. Martin and Caldwell both turned. Johnson did not move. He kept his eyes rigidly fixed on Unger. The Venusian stood in the bright glare from the spot, glanced toward the source of the scream.

"Bring the human forward unharmed," Unger spoke.

Fighting, scratching, clawing, doing everything but spit and she would have done that if she had had the chance, Vee Vee was dragged forward. Johnson still did not move. Neither his gaze nor the focus of the zit gun ever left Unger's face. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw Martin leap forward.

"Vee Vee!" Martin screamed. "What in the devil are you doing here? What the hell are you doing on Venus?"

Out of the corners of his eyes, Johnson saw Vee Vee flow into Martin's arms. "Hank, Hank, darling, I came by the last rocket. I've been looking everywhere for you." Her arms were around Martin's neck and she was kissing him wildly. "I learned you might be here and I came here looking for you. When they caught you, I tried to escape and go for help. I couldn't get out. They caught me too, Hank." Again she kissed him.

The word, "Hank," rang through Johnson's mind like a bell. Very few people knew Martin's nickname. He was very sensitive about this name, it was his most carefully guarded secret, known only to friends intimate enough not to use it. If Vee Vee knew Martin's carefully guarded name.

"Oh, hell!" Something inside Johnson said. "Damn!"

He glanced at the two, to make certain of what he was seeing out of the corners of his eyes. The instant after he shifted his gaze he knew it was not the thing to do. He swung quickly back to look at Unger.

The circle of light was empty.

Unger had vanished.

In the silence, Johnson could hear Venusian feet drawing closer, the soft rustle of knives being pulled from scabbards.

IV

Johnson stood without moving and stared at the empty circle of light.

His eyes insisted. "He is not there. We looked away for a moment and when we looked back he was gone."

The corners of his eyes said, "We caught a glimpse of something...."

"What was it you glimpsed?"

"We ... we are not certain ... we think...."

The human could not wait to get the message from the corners of his eyes. Steps were driving forward. He whirled in time to see Taldero lunging at him. A naked knife glittered in the Venusian's uplifted hand. Taldero's face was a gleaming mask of triumph. The Venusian was already relishing the good feeling he would get from sinking his knife up to the hilt in this human's throat. Men were interlopers on Venus, space creatures to be destroyed, vermin that no honest Venusian could accept.

Johnson dropped the zit gun. There was no time to use it. In this moment it was only in his way. One hand caught the uplifted arm. His body met Taldero's body. He was rocked backward by the fury of that charge. He caught himself. The other hand sought Taldero's body. The Venusian gasped with pain as the Karmer nerve block was forced home. He shuddered and went limp. The knife fell from his fingers. Johnson shoved him backward against another Venusian. From the floor he snatched the gun and the knife.

He could hear Caldwell's gun spitting. A semi-circle of Venusians were pressing toward the three humans. Caldwell was holding them back. Martin, unarmed, was clutching the recorder. Vee Vee stood in front of him like some amazon preparing to do battle for her mate.

"Vee Vee! Catch!" She turned startled eyes toward Johnson in time to snatch the gun he threw to her.

"But what will you do—"

"I've still got Taldero's knife. Back up against the back wall and try to hold them at bay. I think I know something."

Johnson dived through the spotlight. The wall behind the light was decorated with a mural, a spot on Venus where the sun was breaking through clouds and illumining a vast, rain-swept valley. On Venus, where they saw the sun but rarely, the sight of Sol was considered about the same as a glimpse of heaven. He felt along the mural. The corners of his eyes insisted, "He went this way." His searching fingers found a spot, pushed against it. A section of the wall slid soundlessly away.

Sitting in a soft chair in the hidden room revealed there, Unger looked calmly at him.

"You saw me go?" Unger said. "You are very, very seeing. No Venusian and up until now no human has ever seen an adept move. We have a rule about it...."

"A part of my eyes saw you move and recorded the impression," Johnson stepped into the room. In his hand, the knife blade glittered. "Life ticks away very rapidly here tonight." He gestured outward where the screams of the Venusians mingled with the throb of the guns. "Call off your wolves or life will stop ticking for you."

Unger seemed utterly unperturbed by the sight of the knife or the man behind it. "They are not my wolves," he said. "I do not know that I can call them off but perhaps I can hold them at bay for a while." He rose with the easy grace of an athlete and moved to the opening.

Out there three humans were backing against the wall. Johnson did not look at them. This time he would not take his eyes off Unger.

"Peace!" The Dreamer's voice was practically a roar.

The Venusians pressing close against the three humans hesitated. In the distance a voice screamed, "I saw you—"

"Inside here, you humans," Unger spoke quickly.

Vee Vee, Martin, and Caldwell slid through the opening. Unger slammed the door, dropped a bar across it. Looking at him, Johnson saw that the Venusian was sweating.

The humans were panting. Vee Vee looked at Johnson. Her eyes glowed. "Johnny! You did it!" Johnson looked away.

Martin stared around the room. "So this is the trick!" He spat out the words. "They distract your attention, then they jump into this hole. It's just a matter of moving very rapidly. Probably they spend years learning it and think they have something very important when they master it." Bitter disappointment sounded in Martin's voice. He seemed to have forgotten the death they had so narrowly missed outside. He lifted the recorder as if he intended to smash it on the floor.

Unger caught it, took it from the human. "I thought you wanted to see what went on inside the Room of the Dreaming."

"I did, but I didn't think it was fraud. I sensed that something important was here." Martin's voice was the voice of a man who has lost a dream.

"Why don't you look at the recording?"

"To hell with the recording. It will only show more fraud."

"But—"

"I say to hell with it too!" Caldwell interrupted. "Our necks come first. Let's get out of here. Johnny—"

"Just a moment," Johnson said. Sweat was now visible on Unger's face, glistening in heavy yellow drops.

"Why don't you see the recording?" Unger urged. From the angle in which his head was held, Johnson had the impression the Dreamer was listening. The human listened too. He could hear no sound unless it was a thin mumble of voices beyond the barred door.

"The recorder is also a projector on the sound and visual tracks, is it not?" Unger asked.

"Yes," Martin's voice was sullen.

"Then shall we take a few minutes and see what the recorder caught in the Room of the Dreaming?" Without waiting for an answer he snapped the switches that rewound the wires and began to set up the recorder to function as a projector. "We will project the visual part against the wall there and listen to the sound. The other radiations you have caught will need extensive laboratory equipment to interpret."

"You seem to know a lot about this!" Martin challenged.

"Do I? Ah...." Watching him handle the recorder Johnson had the impression that the Venusian had never seen one of these instruments but was swiftly grasping the meaning of the various dials and switches as he came to them. If this was true, it was a marvelous mental feat. Wonder rose in Johnson. But his eyes never left Unger and his hand did not relax its grip on Taldero's knife.

"Watch," Unger said.

A jet of light from the self-contained unit sprang out through the lens, flashing against the wall. Unger gestured toward it. "Watch," he repeated.

"I'm watching you," Johnson said.

"Suspicious?"

"Don't I have a right to be?"

The question went unanswered. Music from the sound track throbbed in the small room. The scene on the wall revealed Unger stretched flat on the mat.

"Damned fraud!" Martin muttered.

Vee Vee moved close to Johnson. Her whisper was very soft. "I wonder if we will see the dreams again?"

"I do not know. I am watching the Dreamer."

"Yes. I know." She moved closer still. Her voice was even softer. "Darling."

"Shut up!"

She shrank away from him. He was aware that her eyes were on him. Suddenly she laughed, softly. "Oh, good! You're jealous."

Had she read his mind? "I am not jealous. Shut up. This is no time for talk."

In spite of what he said she moved closer. Under his breath he swore at her.

In the distance he seemed to catch the mutter of shouted voices. "I tell you I saw him!" one voice screamed.

"Look!" Wild excitement was in Martin's tone. "Look! He is floating."

Johnson felt his heart beat pick up.

The projected scene revealed that Unger was actually floating.

"If the recorder caught it like that it actually happened that way!" Martin screamed. "You can't hypnotize a recorder."

But was it real? Was the Dreamer really floating? Desperately Johnson wanted to see with all his eyes.

"We will watch Unger for you," the corners of his eyes whispered.

Johnson dared to look at the projected picture. There was no mistaking the evidence. The Dreamer was floating. No wires lifted him. The recorder would have caught wires.

"This floating is no fraud," Unger said softly. "We Dreamers know and manipulate and use forces—"

"Anti-gravity!" Martin screamed. "With anti-gravity comes ships to the stars!"

"We Dreamers know certain forces, certain energy states, which we manipulate—"

Crash!

The door went down. The bar was torn from its sockets by the sudden pressure applied against it. Through the opening a knife came, crashed against the wall. Then another and another.

In Vee Vee's and Caldwell's hands the zit guns throbbed. Venusians stumbled through the doorway.

"This way," Unger said, moving toward the farther wall.

Martin snatched the recorder from the table and turned the light beam on a Venusian trying to get through the door. He dodged backward. From the Room of the Dreaming a babble of angry voices arose.

"This way," Unger repeated. The door was open in the farther wall. The humans dived through it. Unger closed it and followed them.

They found themselves in darkness. Martin turned the recorder on it. The light from it revealed a tunnel. Unger moved forward. "Follow, please."

"These Dreamers do know something," Martin was babbling to Johnson. "They have latched on to vital secrets of nature. I don't know what else they've got but that secret of floating is...."

"There are many secrets," Unger said as he moved ahead of them. "In the last analysis perhaps there is only one secret, one energy, but this energy takes many forms."

"How do you do this dreaming?" Martin questioned.

"It is a very complex process," Unger answered. "The music and the perfume are part of it. But we, the Dreamers, are the heart and the core and the soul of it. What you call hypnosis is involved in part. We Dreamers reach the minds of our audience. We bring up to the level of awareness the most cherished dream of those who are in rapport with us. We Dreamers see, feel, and share in the dreaming of our audience. To some extent we direct their dreaming. They have no comprehension of what is involved. To them the Dreaming is a sacred thing. The Dreamers are minor gods."

"But how do you float?" Martin repeated.

"We take the force which you call gravity. It is an energy state. We tap this energy to reach the minds of our audience, to control and to come into rapport with them." The Venusian's breath was coming in gasps.

"Yes. Go on." Martin was the hound on the scent of prey, the eager scientist following the clue no matter where it lead, knowing there was an answer and determined to have that answer no matter the cost.

Unger stopped. A door was ahead. He fumbled with a catch. The door swung open.

Rain and the darkness of the night swept through the opening. In the far distance lightning walked across the sky. Outside was the streets of the city.

"Seek safety!" Unger's voice was hoarse. "It will perhaps be better if you leave Venus. I warn you fairly, my people are wolves. They hold the dreaming sacred. Sometimes they hold the Dreamers sacred. But if they think you have stolen the secrets of the dreaming—Well, it would be better for you for wolves to tear you to pieces than it would be for my people to catch you." He leaned against the open door.

"But the secret of the floating?" Martin insisted.

"You have it on your recorder." Unger answered. "It is a matter of frequency, of vibration and interwoven vibration. From the information on your recorder, you can develop the equations you will need. Go."

"Good!" Martin's voice was a shout of exultation rising in the dark night.

"My people will soon be searching the streets. Go."

Martin and Caldwell went quickly through the opening. Johnson hesitated. "Unger ... Dreamer...." He sought for words. "You ... you're a great guy."

The Venusian's hand came to his arm. Vee Vee stood very close, watching, waiting, though Martin had already gone.

"Thank you, my friend," Unger whispered. "I accept your words and the meaning that is behind them."

"I...." Johnson's voice choked into silence. Here was a great Venusian and he knew it, a Dreamer whose dream went beyond race, beyond space, perhaps beyond time.

"Come with us," Johnson said. "Come to Earth with us."

"No." Unger's voice was almost a sob. "I may not leave this planet."

"Why not? We will protect you. On Earth there will be great honor for you."

"There is honor here for me among the Dreamers. You do not know it, my friend, but all the Dreamers of Venus are with me now in this moment while my life drains away. They give me honor. More than I deserve."

Horror flooded through Johnson. "While your life drains away? I don't understand."

Unger leaned forward. "Look...."

From his back the hilt of a knife protruded. "One of the knives found a target."

"The hopeless fools! Come. We will help you."

"No human and no Venusian may help me now. The Dreamers are with me. My life is going. Believe me, my friend, I know." The Venusian straightened up and coughed blood.

"The fools were throwing at me and they hit you accidentally."

"It was no accident," Unger said. "And the knife was aimed at me."

"At you? Why? But the Dreamers are sacred."

"Not if they break the rules. And I broke one of them. Some Venusian saw me leave the spot of light, the trick that you saw."

"But it was only a trick."

"As I did it tonight it was a trick," Unger whispered. "But as the rules go, it is no more a trick than the floating. We go into the light by a path that none may see."

"Then you deliberately stepped out of the spot of light—"

"Yes, my friend."

"In heaven's name, why?" One mystery had been solved only to open a greater one.

"Perhaps because I wanted you to see me go, and follow me. Some Venusian saw me go, the one that screamed, 'I saw him!' It was a chance I took. The rules of the Dreamers say that if any watcher sees one come or go, his life is forfeit."

"You wanted me to see you go. Unger, why?"

"Because I saw your vision, your dream." Unger's voice was very weak. "Tell me, my friend, was not your dream that of a space ship flying through far-off voids, the pathway to the stars?"

"Yes. Yes. That was what I saw. But...."

"That is my dream too." Unger gasped. "It is a dream which you humans can bring to fruition. But it is not only a dream, it is a prophecy. Some day you humans will sail such a ship to the far-off stars. Here, tonight a Dreamer helped that prophecy to fulfillment. When that ship sails to the stars, Venusians will sail with you because of what a Venusian did here tonight. Two dreams met tonight and will meet again in the far-off stars."

"Lord!" Johnson whispered. Here was magic beyond comprehension. But if it was magic now, in one time to come it would be the laws of science, of energy, of space, and of time, when the records of the recorder had been translated.

"Go now," the Venusian whispered. Johnson could have stayed, he would have lifted the 300 pound bulk in his arms. Unger forbade it. "And one other thing."

"What other thing?"

"The dream of the woman. I saw that, too."

Johnson suddenly realized that while Martin and Caldwell had vanished into the night, Vee Vee was still with him.

"What about my dream?" she spoke.

"Your dream was of the man with you." Unger whispered. "I saw it. I understood it. It was another factor in the web of dreams I was weaving."

"She was dreaming of me!" Johnson said. "But she is in love with Martin."

"Idiot!" Her voice had a cutting edge. "Of course I love him. He's my brother. I wanted to come with him here but he wouldn't let me. It was from him that I learned so much about you, including how to break the Karmer grip, from his talk before he left Earth, from his letters to me."

"Your dream was of a space ship to the far-off stars. Her dream was of love, and of you." Unger sighed.

"I can dream of space ships too," Vee Vee spoke. "I can do more than dream of them. I can fly there with them."

"Good," Unger whispered as if now all things were complete. "That is all that is needed. Go now. Go!"

His voice drove them.

Hand in hand they ran through the rainy night.

Ahead of them, in some far-off sky, like a vision seen in a dream, a space ship floated.