“That’s what everybody keeps saying.” A sudden impatience broke open inside him as he pulled a chair up to the desk and sat down. “So far, nobody’s said anything about what I’m supposed to do about it.”
The general sighed through his pipe and folded his great hands together on the desk top. “Mr. Metric,” he said slowly, “I wish there was more time to explain this to you. Or time enough for you to rest before making a difficult decision. But you’re going to have to act on only a very sketchy knowledge of the situation.”
“That’s all right.” Ralph waved a nonchalant hand. He felt slightly giddy—his emotions seemed to have separated from events, going through their own accelerating changes. “As long as it’s a good sketchy knowledge it’ll be more than I’ve had before.”
“Are you drunk?” said the general, frowning.
“He’s all right,” said Spencer. “Just overdosed on happenings. Come on, Ralph, this is serious.”
“All right!” shouted Ralph. He flushed with anger. “So get on with it! I’m listening.”
General Loren made little smacking noises around the stem of his dead pipe. “I presume,” he said at last, “that Mr. Stimmitz showed you the prepared orientation tape. Good. Then you know the nature of the disaster we’re trying to prevent. Disaster is, of course, putting it weakly. If Operation Dreamwatch reaches its culmination there will be no one left afterward to call it a disaster.” One of his hands pushed through the sweat on his forehead. “Frankly, the only reason some of us are maintaining any sort of calm is that we’ve been living with the idea for a little while.”
I think, said Ralph to himself, I’d rather live with it than be chased by it all day. “Go ahead,” he said calmly.
After a deep, steadying breath, the general plunged in. “At this moment, the psychic energy level located in the Opwatch dreamfield is building to the point where it can be detonated. From the information we’ve been able to get hold of, it’s apparent we only have a few hours until that point is reached—”
“Why not blow up the Thronsen Home?” interrupted Ralph. “Bomb it, as a sort of preventive strike. If the kids in there were destroyed, wouldn’t their psychic energy be gone as well? Now I know that sounds callous, but given the alternatives—”
“No.” The general shook his head. “It’s too late for that. Most of the Thronsen children have died already—physically, because their psychic energy has already been displaced into the dreamfield, where we can’t get at it. Once that energy starts on its exponential curve, it has a life of its own. It can’t be damped by sending the watchers into the field—even if we could convince any of them to go.”
“Wait. Wait.” Ralph pressed his fingers to his brow for a few seconds.
“If the energy is located in the dreamfield, why should we worry about it exploding? That’s a pocket universe, separate from this one. We wouldn’t be hurt by an explosion there.”
“Not if the dreamfield remained a separate universe. But it can be transposed into this one. Just as part of this universe, the watchers, could be inserted into the dreamfield, the dreamfield can be inserted into this universe.”
“That’s how my brother was killed,” said Spencer. “See, the extent to which this universe and the dreamfield can be overlapped is variable. The watchers were never completely inserted into the dreamfield, but just far enough so they could see the dream sequences the kids were being put through—though that’s unimportant—and also to keep the energy level from premature detonation. Premature, that is, if your intention is to destroy the world. Anyway, the watchers were always between universes, so to speak. That’s why they couldn’t physically interact with the figures on the dreamfield. Until Mike was killed. Then the dreamfield was momentarily transposed onto the same plane as the watchers, and the field’s slithergadee was able to get at Mike.”
So that explains it, thought Ralph. He saw again the bloodstain on the ground outside the base. The sudden transposition must have pushed us closer to our own universe—close enough to bleed into it.
“That’s why the psychic bomb is dangerous,” continued the general. “A split second before it’s to be detonated, the entire dreamfield containing it will be inserted into this universe.”
“Oh.” Ralph felt some space inside him diminish, as if to make room for the dreamfield’s intrusion. The inevitability of it seemed to be already darkening the earth outside the window. “You mean you brought me all the way back here just to tell me this? Somehow, that doesn’t seem, uh, kind. I could have caught it with everyone else in Las Vegas and been just as happy.”
The general giggled, producing an unnerving effect. “Well,” he said, “there is a way to keep the psychic bomb from going off. That’s why you were brought here.”
A small, trembling premonition moved upwards along Ralph’s spine.
Not of danger—all time, he knew, had now moved past that point—but of a fearful responsibility with its point weighing against his breast alone. A grade-school fear resurrected, but now bigger than himself, bigger than anything— What if I screw up! he thought bleakly. The realization that there would be no one to blame him afterward didn’t help. He could barely squeeze his voice out. “What am I supposed to do?”
The large brown hands on the desk top were white-knuckled. The general seemed petrified, his teeth clamped on his pipe in a frozen rictus.
A small red spot of anger bloomed in the center of Ralph’s vision, blotting out the general’s face. He just realized that the whole thing depends on me. Ralph stiffened in his chair.
“Forget him,” said Spencer. He came over and sat down on the corner of the desk. “I’m surprised the military mind was able to bear up this long. This sort of thing just isn’t in their universe.”
“So what’s the plan?” said Ralph. “What am I supposed to do that no one else can?”
“It’s like this. The psychic energy doesn’t automatically explode at any point of its exponential growth curve.” Spencer held his palms a few inches apart. “In fact, there’s only a limited range of the curve where it can be detonated at all. Below that range, the energy will dissipate harmlessly if a detonation attempt is made. Above that range, the energy consumes itself—burns itself out. If the detonator can be set off before the critical range of the growth curve is reached, then the psychic bomb is harmless.”
“So where’s the detonator?”
“It’s on the dreamfield itself. It’s the thing the watchers call the slithergadee.”
A memory of fangs sliding in their sockets, then Ralph rose a few inches from his seat. “You mean you want me to go back on the field and—and do what to that thing?”
Spencer pushed him back down in the chair. The general’s pipe fell from his mouth. “The Beta group,” said Spencer, “has developed a device you’ll take with you onto the field. You merely have to locate the slithergadee, adjust the device as you’ll be shown, then use it to set off the slithergadee/detonator—before the energy level’s critical range is reached. That’ll defuse the bomb.”
“Is that all?” Ralph’s laugh came out like a gasp. “You’re crazy—that thing could be anywhere on the field. And what’s to prevent it from getting me like it did your brother?”
“Hopefully you’ll get it before it gets you. As for locating it—the sooner you go, the better chance you’ll have.”