Ralph’s spine went rigid. “Slow down,” he said, pressing the phone tighter to his ear. “I can’t understand you, you’re talking so fast.”
“I can’t slow down.” Spencer’s voice wavered, as though he were about to break into tears. “I’ve been running all day and they’re gonna find me any minute.”
“The program.” Ralph’s own voice was tight with urgency. “What was in it?”
The sound of a few more ragged breaths came from the receiver.
“Operation Dreamwatch,” he spoke at last, his voice only a fraction slower and more controlled. “It’s like the Manhattan Project of 1942. You know, the first nuclear pile? Zip rods—”
The phone went silent for a few seconds, then clicked sharply and began an electronic buzz in his ear. “Spencer?” he shouted into the whining phone, but knew already there would be no answer.
He threw the receiver against the wall. It struck and dangled on the end of its cord, still sounding its faint idiot note. He glared at it, at the wall behind, at everything with a growing anger. This universe was still bent on hiding its secrets from him.
That does it, he thought disgustedly. He strode into the front room and picked up his jacket. I’ve got to talk to Sarah. Maybe she knows more—even just a little bit more—that I have to know.
Between the moon and the desert three jets left trails into the south.
The red lines healed and faded among the stars. Ralph felt like a ghost as he passed the silent line shack. The watchers, he calculated, were halfway through their shift, wandering around bored on the dreamfield.
And here I am, he thought, heading for the gate. Not bored, at least. Is that an improvement?
The dunes were a luminous blue in the moonlight. He followed the double trail of his previous footsteps out to Muehlenfeldt’s jetliner. Only when he was standing in the darkness beneath it, looking up at the tightly sealed metal flank, did he think, Now what? The thought of throwing pebbles up at the circular windows struck him as stupid, but he had no other idea. One of the scruffy bushes behind him rustled.
Before he could turn around, he was on his stomach, his face pressed into the sand. Someone’s knees were heavy on his back. Both his arms were brought up behind him and he was jerked painfully to his feet.
Twisting his head around, he could see over his shoulder the face of one of Muehlenfeldt’s guards. The malice underneath had split open the surface with a grin.
“Whatcha looking for?” the guard shouted in Ralph’s ear. “Looking for something? Huh?” He pulled the captive arms even farther up. “Whatcha snooping around for?”
Ralph couldn’t speak. The pain in his spine was making the stars go out one by one.
“Come on then. Jerk.” The guard trotted him forward. “The senator wants to talk to you.”
Another guard stepped out from behind one of the massive wheels. He pressed a button on a stubby-antennaed box in one hand. The jet’s stairs began their hissing descent.
Muehlenfeldt was alone in the jet, or at least there was no sign of Sarah.
The guards dropped Ralph in the middle of a curved section of sofa. He brought his arm out from where it had been twisted behind him, and felt the blood start to seep back into it. In a fluorescent blue dressing gown with a large red M embroidered on the front, Muehlenfeldt paced, scowling, back and forth in front of him. That looks ridiculous, thought Ralph, surprising himself with his calm. Like a cartoon of the world’s richest man.
“All right, Metric,” growled the senator, pointing a leathery finger at Ralph. “I’m not fooling around any more. You’d better open up pretty damn quick.”
Ralph massaged his aching arm. “I don’t know whatever it is you think I’m supposed to be able to tell you.”
“Cut out the games. I want all the details, all the names, everything you know about the Beta group.”
Puzzled, Ralph frowned. “You mean the Alpha Fraction, don’t you?”
The bony hand curled into a fist a few inches from Ralph’s nose. “Cut out the games!” shouted Muehlenfeldt. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about! Beta! Beta! Beta!”
Pushing himself back into the sofa’s upholstery, Ralph looked into the senator’s eyes. It didn’t matter whether he was from another star or not—another type of alienness blazed in the lean face. Insane, thought Ralph. The man’s crazier than—
“All right?” said Muehlenfeldt, his voice softer but still trembling with suppressed rage. “There’s no point in trying to fool me. I know all about it.”
“Great,” muttered Ralph. A weary disgust pushed aside his apprehension for a moment. “Why don’t you tell me about it, then?”
“Get him out of here.” As Ralph was jerked up from the couch Muehlenfeldt slapped the guard on the side of the head. “Careful! Remember what happened to the last one!”
In a few seconds the guard pushed Ralph from the bottom of the jet’s stairs. He stumbled forward, landing on his hands and knees in the sand.
Rolling over on his back, he watched the guard’s scowling face disappear as the ramp retracted into the silver fuselage. The hissing stopped and the silence of the night desert crept up around him.
He got to his feet and walked out from beneath the wing. His hands looked so pale and inhuman in the moonlight he thrust them in his jacket pockets and trudged over the sand.
“Ralph.” Sarah’s voice.
For a moment he thought some residue of the senator’s madness had twisted his hearing. Then he saw her standing on the little trail, waiting for him. Some part of the spectrum was missing, the part that had made her dress sparkle when he had seen her inside the jet. Now the fabric appeared as a featureless black against her skin.
“What are you doing out here?” he said. “I thought your father would’ve kept you locked up.”
She shrugged, listless. “Why should he? Where’s to go?”
“Anywhere. Away from him.”
“No.” She reached out and took his hand. “All that money is very comfortable. I know. It even fills up a little bit of the hole left by the Alpha Fraction.”
“What’s this other thing he was talking about? The Beta group?”
“Who knows? He’s insane.” She brought her hand up and held Ralph’s against her shoulder. “Something he dreamed up.”
Of course, he thought. We’re all operating out of them now. “Now what,” he murmured. The words were sucked lifeless by the empty spaces around them.
Sarah let go of his hand and turned away. Silently, her figure withdrew into the darkness surrounding the jetliner.
It’s all dreamfields, he thought. The dunes wheeled around him as he looked for the trail he had been following. No difference between this and any other one. And the worst is to know you’re lost on them.
He lay down on the sofa in darkness. As soon as he closed his eyes, or so it seemed, he was driving down a freeway in his parents’ old Ford. Beside him sat Michael Stimmitz with one arm draped casually out the side window. “I suppose you’re pretty mad at me,” said Stimmitz. “For getting you into all this.”
“No, it’s all right. Really.” Ralph had the sensation that the car was going very fast, faster than he’d ever gone in anything, yet everything beyond the windshield was a featureless gray haze. This is all a dream, anyway, he thought. A weary hollowness slid through his muscles, It doesn’t matter.