*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63916 ***

                         The CONJURER of VENUS

                           By CONAN T. TROY

       _A world-famed Earth scientist had disappeared on Venus.
        When Johnson found him, he found too the secret to that
      globe-shaking mystery--the fabulous Room of The Dreaming._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                     Planet Stories November 1952.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


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.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63916 ***