Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) Read online

  At the bar a moosey tag in plaited hair and silk sleeves who had been staring at me, the muscle, I assumed, grunted and turned back to his drink. No matter the loyalty to brother or nation, business was still business in the Flats.

  It was night as April and I crossed the drawbridge over the moat. “This where you live?” I asked her.

  She took my hand and smiled. “It's where I dream, tag.”

  “The Stuff of Dreams,” a floating pink holo read, a leaning rainbow castle on a Waste Flats hill, with tiers like a wedding cake and perhaps as much substance and longevity. Termites and spiders knew more about structural engineering than the jokers who pasted this one together. But the haloes of colored lights that looped from sugary stucco flanks to pink parapets lent an aura against the night sky and the wind-driven clouds churning across a full moon.

  From the plains below came cheers of tourists at an impromptu boxing-karate-Mong Chu match, and shouts as rads rode motorcycles through campfires, spraying fountains of sparks.

  I opened the flower-scented front portal and April hooked my arm in hers and led me into the lobby.

  “She always finds the cute ones,” a woman dressed in long silver hair announced from where she reclined within an inflated vinyl sea shell. She caressed her upper lip with a slow tongue.

  April gave her a look that could bleach silver to white.

  The woman chuckled and stared at me. “Blue eyes is shy,” she said. “Hey, Ape,” she called to April, “can I have him when you're through with him? I just can't resist the tall, blonde Germanic type.”

  German? Maybe so. Ginny and I were abandoned as kids and never knew our genetic heritage.

  “You couldn't resist a gorilla's look,” April shot back.

  I glanced over my shoulder as we went by and the woman winked at me. “Don't ever get a haircut, tag.” She grinned. “You look great in tousled blonde.”

  “I'll try not to,” I said.

  Her gaze raked my body. “Could use a little more meat on the bones, though.” She chuckled and sipped her drink. “If it's on the right bone.”

  “You should try to get over your shyness,” I threw back as April pulled me along.

  “Keep it up, June!” April snarled, “an' I'll come back an' squash you like a bug!”

  April's room on the third floor was a child's delight of cotton-candy colors, misted golden mirrors, fluttering silk drapery, and plastic unicorns. Soothing flute music emanated from the walls. Stuffed dragons crouched on top of the dream equipment.

  I smelled sandalwood as I sat on the plush bed. I couldn't resist lifting a chocolate-colored velveteen dragon, its wings protectively outstretched over the Inner Quietus panel, for a better look at the dials, buttons and switches of the illegal IQ board. I turned the dragon in my hand and had visions of Gretch, my Syl' Tyrrian reptilian mount. She'd probably returned to the wild by now. Be careful, Gretch. It's dangerous out there in the wilds. I smiled. Her species, the predatory Grunithes, were one reason it was dangerous out there.

  April dimmed the filter lights to blue and sprayed instant-smoke to swirl through the soft beams.

  How did she know, I wondered as she joined me on the bed with drinks, that blue always represented fantasy for me?

  She handed me a drink and smiled. “To relax you before the journey.”

  I sipped sweet berrybru spiced with something a lot stronger and watched as she undid her hair, then the buttons on her blouse. She stroked my body with hers as she reached across me to switch on the terminal. Lights blinked, the panel hummed. She took my drink and I let her gently push me down to the pillows. She lowered herself to my chest, her glossy hair brushing my neck, her breasts pressed against my chest. Her hand roamed down my body and played with pants buttons.

  I touched her breast. Were Althea and Charles in their honeymoon bed by now? Damn them both! “If we make love in the dream, how real is it?”

  She sat back onto pillows. “We could do it as the dream entities we'll become, but it might pull you out of the dreamscape. With her hair down, her face seemed narrow. “Of course we might both be males. Or females. You have any thorns about that?”

  “It's just a dream.” I shrugged. “I suppose you're used to being either one.”

  She raised her glass in a toast. “Sweet lips, you wouldn't believe the Utopias and hells I've generated from this bed.”

  I think I liked her better when she'd worn that mask of childlike charm. I wondered if the freckles were real. “How come your brain's not vacced by all the mega dreams?” I asked.

  “They're not my dreams. When I choose to make an appearance, no matter the form, it's merely a projected illusion.”

  Isn't everything?

  We fitted headgear and headphones – hers had a mic – and lowered visors. It reminded me of scuba gear. Perhaps I'd turn this illusion into the tropical underwater 'scape of the Grand Caymens, my favorite dive spot.

  Then again, maybe not.

  Sye Kor's slimy pond, with its chemicals, and the state of slavery, were still too firmly meshed in my mind. I'd had nightmares about being held down underwater while Kor feasted on my liver.

  April's fingers rested on the terminal. Her other hand, in mine, felt thin and cool. “Ready?”

  To slide into a dream state where April and I would be in deep mental contact? Where she could take full command if she'd a mind to? I closed my eyes and exhaled. In spite of my mistrust of her, I felt warm and relaxed from the drink, and excited about the adventure. “Why not?” I mumbled.

  Machinery whirred.

  I stared at the black visor and watched points of violet light appear. They grew and pulsed at a flash rate of four to seven Hz – Theta state – dream time…

  Music began inside my head. No, it was piped through the headphones. A heavy beat. My muscles loosened of their own volition. A tingling warmth began in the soles of my feet and flowed upward, bringing a sense of well-being that I hadn't felt for quite a while.

  The music deepened to a thudding throb, formed muffled sounds, stretched a piece of itself high and thin as violin strings and spun into the cry of a seabird. I held my breath as a wash of salty spray splashed my face. The seething hiss of waves crawled up my legs…

  A fractured coastline!

  Syl' Tyrria's pink sky jumped out of blackness with the vitality of a natural landscape. Bruised clouds roiled over seething water. A sick feeling in my gut deepened as waves grew hands that caught at me. I sensed an entity – not April, I knew. I tried to raise an arm to wipe away the image.

  And Couldn't.

  ”Your muscles are held rigid by the system.” April's voice came through the headphones. “Or you might hurt yourself. Just force away the vision with your mind if you don't like it. It's all in your mind, remember?”

  I tried to nod, remembered, and mentally turned away from the ocean, where a silver shape glided beneath waves, to search my mind for a more agreeable illusion.

  “Just let the dream of your choice happen,” she said insistently.

  It didn't.

  The ocean 'scape intensifies and takes on a reality I cannot distinguish from the waking state. Sand too hot on my bare feet. Sun burning my skin. Odor of rotting things on wet rocks. Something slimy this way comes…and brushes my toes! An amorphous silver being rises from the ground with appendages locked deep within the sand like tree roots. Its mouth widens into a long black cave. Jules Rammis, it rasps within my mind, I have been searching for you.

  I draw in a sharp breath, and in the dream I turn and run through soft sand. “Sye Kor? Dammit! No! You're dead. April? This is not the dream I envisioned!”

  “Then discard it and form a new one. My boss doesn't like it when I cut dreams short.”

  I try. But a shadow crosses the sun behind me. ”Christlotus!” I hear myself cry.

  “If you can't push it away,” April says, “then just go with it. It's your dream. You set the rules.”

  My dream? OK. My dream. Perhaps the dream is
carrying a subconscious message for me. “OK. What do you want?” I mutter aloud and relax to open myself to the answer

  To rid my world of the Terran dream czar of Halcyon!

  “What? April! This is not my dream. I want out.”

  It's all in your mind, she says indifferently. So was she! April no longer talked through my headphones.

  Halcyon? “Is that you, Kor? From geth state? April, damn you! This is becoming a nightmare. I want out! You'll get your full dream money.”

  What the hell nation is geth state in? she asked.

  “It's a state of existence, not a nation.”

  “Well, there's a reason for its appearance here, honeybee. I thought you had the prairie oysters to stand up to a dream.”

  I stop, though the shadow lengthens, turns and – the fish has grown by leaps and bounds. It smiles a gaping smile, lunges and – Oh, God. Inside Sye Kor's slimy cavern. No. The creature has swallowed me! Black cavern closing. I scream. Anticipate teeth.

  They don't happen. But the fish's mouth is suffocating, his tongue warm and raspy as he rolls me around, positions me for the slide down his throat. I hang onto a sabre tooth. Who are you? I shout within my head. A gush of foul air as he burps and I slide and attempt to claw past the dream. I slip down his gullet. April, Get me the hell out of this!”

  Her thought is tinged with amusement. It can't hurt you. Just order it out of your head. It's your own illusion.

  Sweat pours down my cheeks, is wiped away when I fall into a pit of liquid. “This is a real good time!”

  I could direct the dream to your own personal harem, if you like, April sends. Or is it superspeed hovairs? How about cheering, adoring crowds? It's your dream, tag.

  I feel her mindprobe deepen. No wonder crystal mega dreams are illegal. Imagine a government enforcement agency that could legally probe like this.

  Oh, April exclaims, one loyal, adoring woman, and your child, hmmm?

  “You're enjoying this, aren't you? OK, hook me into that dream and I'll stay, but you're a lascivious voyeur.”

  I've been called worse. The dreamer controls the dream, tag. Your subconscious is sending you images that you haven't dealt with, although I've got to admit, yours are among the more curious that I've witnessed.

  “If I wanted therapy, I'd have –

  A light in the distance. Liquid thins to a quicksilver stream. The putrid stench dissipates. I float on a wooden raft between bare branches that catch at me. A silver tentacle lifts. A giant white octopus? No. A sense of despair emanates from the creature. I scramble onto a marshy bank. This isn't Sye Kor. Then what, or who? “Goddammit, April, this is not my dream! Get me out.”

  The entity silently probes my mind while I brush past ferns and throw up a mindshield. A shrew- like animal with full teats scurries by and races up a cave-riddled canyon wall. I follow my Syl' Tyrrian mammal. I'd searched long and hard for her among reptilian life forms. I'd given up on finding her. Given up everything, actually. Family. Home. I imagine a church. Bells ringing… She wears a saffron wedding gown. Her auburn hair is more the halo around her face than the headdress of flowers and veils. It makes me feel good, and makes me feel miserable, just to look at her. I stare through a stained-glass window at the Church of Saint Guevara, where I'd really watched Althea's wedding earlier that day. She gives Charles the same demure look she'd worn when we traveled down the aisle, once upon…

  “April?” I feel her presence as a question in my mind. “How do I delete a dream character?” I ask as the married couple emerges on church steps.

  That's in your hands, cull. She uses the rads' term for outsiders.

  Yeah. I image a stingler in my hand, turn the ring to “hot” and press the red button. Charles becomes a smear on the church steps.

  Lisa. My Lisa. A beautiful flower girl, with blonde curls and a golden smile that outdoes the bouquet of yellow roses she clutches. Does she ever think of me?

  Why should she? She's six, was five months old last time I'd seen Earth, and her. There's an ache in me past dream as she giggles and scratches her white stockinged leg with her raised foot. Relatives and friends throw paper confetti at the smiling, groomless bride.

  One year on Tartarus, before we knew there were Loranths who'd named their world Syl' Tyrria. One year, Al. It's my job. Astrobiology is what I do.

  I open the door of a golden carriage with winged horses, there on the broad church steps. Nice touch, that. Althea always liked horses. She slides in beside me onto red velvet seats, her face flushed with excitement.

  Lisa scrambles in beside me. “Daddy!” she cries and throws her arms around my neck. Her small bouquet is squashed against my face. The smell of roses is heady. I peel petals off my chin with a laugh and kiss her cheek. “Hi, Squiggles.” It's what I called her when she was an infant. “Do you want to drive the horses?” I hand her a bunch of reins.

  “Jules, I waited,” Althea says, breathless. “I waited for five years.” A sheen of taut cheekbones and wide dark eyes…ebony on silk, my Althea.

  “I know.” I take her in my arms, embrace silk, veils, a slim waist. God, I want her. Her lips are warm, tender with love. The breath between them shudders and she leans against me. I smear lipstick as I kiss her, so hungry for her. Lisa's… Oh, yeah, she's outside playing with horses. No. Staying with Althea's parents. “Al, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But we're together now, and everything's all right.”

  “I know.” She strokes my hair, hugs me. “I understand, Jay, really I do.” She always called me Jay. The carriage flattens and sprouts bedposts. The church steps curve up into walls, blocking out relatives and friends. Althea lies beside me. “It's not your fault, Jay,” she murmurs. “You had a bad childhood, you poor thing.” She strokes my hair. Poor thing, I hear April chuckle inside my head.

  “Stay the hell out of this!” I tell her.

  “Your call, tag.”

  Tears burn my eyes. “Yes. I was scared, Al. I thought I'd somehow cause Lisa's death too, like…like Ginny's. But I'm past that now, I swear i am! I'm ready to be responsible.”

  “I know,” she coos.

  I undo silk buttons down her back, lift off her headdress and set it on the night table. ”Al, I'll always love you, no matter who you marry.” I kiss her smooth shoulders. Her hair falls on my cheek as I slip the gown down to her waist and undo the bra. “Oh, God, how I've missed you,” I murmur. “How I want you.” I open more buttons to ease the rustling gown over the curve of her hips.

  Althea's crumpled headdress rustles there on the night table and contorts into a large white spider, grinning, panting.

  “Suppose you back out now, April? I warn her, “if you want the creds for this dream.”

  Your little indulgence would dissolve faster than a bad marriage. The spider's not me.

  Althea rolls on top of me, spreads thighs around my hips, smiles down. But… I cry out as her face darkens. Her skin shrivels. “Al. No!” April!” Glowing threads of fire race up cracks that split Althea's face, circle her eyes like brands! I try to twist out from under her. Something silver shimmers, flows from within the spreading wounds of her charred body.

  This is illusion, searcher, I hear in my mind. But Halcyon is not.

  “April!” I scream. I choke on bile as Althea's blackened skin shreds and the amorphous silver being emerges as from a chrysalis. I'm trapped beneath its heavy weight! A piercing lick of flame erupts inside my head and I see a dark tunnel, its walls streaked with laces of silver. A smell of rotten fruit. The alien presence still radiates a sense of…of despair? Sadness!

  “April, help me,” I cry. “Please. I'm losing control.”

  “Shit!” she growls.

  Shit indeed! It's just a dream, I tell myself. Just a – My head burns. “Pull me out,” I beg.

  “I can't!” she cries aloud. “Go to another vision. Quick! It's toasting my brain. Damn you, Jules, let go of it. You're holding me here!”

  I drag in breaths and try to force away the image. The al
ien pushes back with a very undreamlike power.

  Your destiny is on Halcyon!

  The word echoes through my mind, touches that place where obsession waits. I find myself desperately searching my memory. Halcyon… I feel drawn to the word, the place.

  “Shut off the goddamn IQ!” I yell to April. “Hurry up. Do it!”

  “Something's…got my hands,” she says. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of the vision, you dumbshit cull!”

  I clamp teeth against the alien mindlink, image an ocean absorbing the intruder, spreading his being like a silver oil slick.

  He lifts a mighty wave against me.

  “This is no dream!” I hear April draw in a breath as she pushes against the vision. “You're on your own, tag!” Her presence begins to fade. I feel a loneliness that has no edges as she slips away.

  But fear strengthens me and I throw my mental defenses against the wall of water, image my enemy a black void. “Suck on this, slimeshit!”

  The silver being doesn't recoil. His dripping body catches light in quivering motion. Droplets of water shake off him like haloes.

  I moan as his telepathic probe burrows deeper. ”Who are you?” I mutter. “What do you want from me?”

  Within that great sadness, an unraveling of time, rolling back to the beginnings of things organic. I take a shuddering breath as the being envelops me. A pulsing limb extends to my head. Light suddenly blazes behind my eyes. An explosion of energy within my brain. A sense of tel power I've never known.

  Halcyon! he whispers in a voice formed from sea waves. Halcyon. Where you will destroy the Terran ravager. He fades out of the dream, leaving me breathing hard, with a bitter smell in my throat.

  “What ravager?” I whisper. “How can I destroy him if I don't even know – “

  Gone.

  “What he is,” I finish.

  The dream wanes, overlaps with April's dim room. “Like hell I'll go to Halcyon!” I throw after him…it.

  I rubbed my forehead as I lay shivering on sweat-soaked sheets. The machinery wound down and violet lights faded in the visor. April was sprawled beside me, very still.