“Then lead on!” Piersen shouted. “On with the dream!”
The bright green shrub grew slowly toward him. Piersen burst into laughter. A dream! Of course, it was all a dream! Nothing could harm him. The menacing shrub was a figment of his imagination, like the blue-black animal. Even if the beast’s jaws had closed on his throat, he would not have been killed.
He would simply have awakened in the Explorer’s Room of Adventures Unlimited.
It all seemed ridiculous now. Why hadn’t he realized all this earlier? That blue-black thing was obviously a dream creation. And the bright green shrub was preposterous. It was all rather silly and unbelievable, once you really thought about it.
In a loud voice, Piersen said, “All right. You can wake me up now.”
Nothing happened. Then he remembered that you couldn’t awaken simply by requesting it. That would invalidate the sense of adventure and destroy the therapeutic effects of excitement and fear upon a jaded nervous system.
He remembered now. The only way you could leave an adventure was by winning through all obstacles. Or by being killed.
The shrub had almost reached his feet. Piersen watched it, marveling at its realistic appearance.
It fastened one of its hooked leaves into the leather of his shoe. Piersen grinned, proud of the way he was mastering his fear and revulsion. He merely had to remember that the thing couldn’t hurt him.
But how, he asked himself, could a person have a realistic adventure if he knew all the time that it wasn’t real? Surely Adventures Unlimited must have considered that.
Then he remembered the last thing Jones told him.
He had been lying on the white cot and Jones was bending over him, hypodermic needle ready. Piersen had asked, “Look, pal, how can I have an adventure if I know it’s not real?”
“That has been taken care of,” Jones had said. “You see, sir, some of our clients undergo real adventures.”
“Huh?”
“Real, actual, physical adventures. One client out of many receives the knockout injection, but no further stimulus. He is placed aboard a spaceship and taken to Venus. There he revives and experiences in fact what the others undergo in fantasy. If he wins through, he lives.”
“And if not?”
Jones had shrugged his shoulders, waiting patiently, the hypodermic poised.
“That’s inhuman!” Piersen had cried.
“We disagree. Consider, Mr. Piersen, the need for adventure in the world today. Danger is necessary, to offset a certain weakening of human fiber which easy times has brought to the race. These fantasy adventures present danger in its safest and most palatable form. But they would lose all value if the person undergoing them did not take them seriously. The adventurer must have the possibility, no matter how remote, that he is truly engaging in a life-and-death struggle.”
“But the ones who really go to Venus—”
“An insignificant percentage,” Jones reassured him. “Less than one in ten thousand. Simply to enhance the possibility of danger for the others.”
“But is it legal?” Piersen had persisted.
“Quite legal. On a total percentage basis, you run a greater risk drinking miniscarette or smoking narcolics.”
“Well,” said Piersen, “I’m not sure I want—”
The hypodermic bit suddenly into his arm.
“Everything will be all right,” Jones said soothingly. “Just relax, Mr. Piersen ...”
That was his last memory before awakening in the jungle.
By now, the green shrub had reached Piersen’s ankle, A slender hooked leaf slid, very slowly, very gently, into his flesh. All he felt was the faintest tickling sensation. After a moment, the leaf turned a dull red.
A blood-sucking plant, Piersen thought with some amusement.
The whole adventure suddenly palled on him. It had been a silly drunken idea in the first place. Enough was enough. He wanted out of this, and immediately.
The shrub edged closer and slid two more hooked leaves into Piersen’s leg. The entire plant was beginning to turn a muddy red-brown.
Piersen wanted to go back to New York, to parties, free food, free entertainment, and a lot of sleep. If he destroyed this menace, another would spring up. This might go on for days or weeks.
The quickest way home was to let the shrub kill him. Then he could simply wake up.
His strength was beginning to ebb. He sat down, noticing that several more shrubs were growing toward him, attracted by the scent of blood.
“It can’t be real,” he said out loud. “Who ever heard of a bloodsucking plant, even on Venus?”
High above him were great, black-winged birds, soaring patiently, waiting for their chance at the corpse.
Could this be real?
The odds, he reminded himself, were ten thousand to one that it was a dream. Only a dream. A vivid, realistic dream. But a dream, nevertheless.
Still, suppose it was real?
He was growing dizzy and weak from loss of blood. He thought, I want to go home. The way home is to die. The chance of actual death is so small, so infinitesimal...
The truth burst upon him. In this age, no one would dare risk the life of a voter. Adventures Unlimited couldn’t really put a man in jeopardy!
Jones had told him about that one in ten thousand merely to add a sense of reality to the fantasy adventure!
That had to be the truth. He lay back, closed his eyes, and prepared to die.
While he was dying, thoughts stirred in his mind, old dreams and fears and hopes. He remembered the one job he had held and his mingled pleasure and regret at leaving it. He thought of his obtuse, hard-working parents, unwilling to accept the rewards of civilization without, as they put it, earning them. He thought, harder than ever before in his life, and he came into contact with a Piersen whose existence he had never suspected.
The other Piersen was a very uncomplicated creature. He simply wanted to live. He was determined to live. This Piersen refused to die under any circumstances—even imaginary.
The two Piersens, one motivated by pride, the other by desire for survival, struggled briefly, while strength ebbed out of their body. Then they resolved the conflict upon mutually satisfactory terms.
“That damned Jones thinks I’ll die,” Piersen said. “Die in order to wake up. Well, I’ll be damned if I’ll give him the satisfaction!”
It was the only way he could accept his own desire to live.
Frighteningly weak, he struggled to his feet and tried to pull the bloodsucking plant loose. It wouldn’t release its grip. With a shout of rage, Piersen reached down and wrenched with all his strength. The hooks slashed his legs as they pulled free, and other hooks slid into his right arm.
But his legs were free now. He kicked aside two more plants and lurched into the jungle, with the green shrub growing up his arm.
Piersen stumbled along until he was far from the other plants. Then he tried to yank the last shrub from his arm.
The shrub caught both his arms, imprisoning them. Sobbing with anger and pain, Piersen swung his arms high and slammed them against the trunk of a tree.
The hooks loosened. Again he slammed his arms against the tree, shutting his eyes to the pain. Again and again, until the shrub released.
Instantly, Piersen began staggering on again.
But he had delayed his life struggle too long. He was streaming blood from a hundred slashes, and the scent was like an alarm bell through the jungle. Overhead, something swift and black descended. Piersen threw himself down, and the shape passed over him with a flurry of beating wings, shrilling angrily.
He rolled to his feet and tried to find protection in a thorny bush. A great, black-winged bird with a crimson breast dived again.
This time, sharp claws caught him in the shoulder and flung him down. The bird landed on his chest with a wild beating of wings. It pecked at his eyes, missed, pecked again.