The Waker Dreams
Galaxy Science Fiction, December
1950
There’s nothing like exciting fantasy to escape boredom. The problem is
to know whether it’s actually a fantasy.
If one flew over the city at this
time of this day, which was like any other day in the year 3850, one would
think all life had disappeared.
Sweeping over the rustless
spires, one would search in vain for the sight of human activity. One’s gaze
would scan the great ribboned highways that swept over and under each other
like the weave of some tremendous loom. But there would be no autocars to see;
nothing but the empty lanes and the colored traffic lights clicking out their
mindless progressions.
Dipping low and weaving in and
out among the glittering towers, one might see the moving walks, the studied
revolution of the giant street ventilators, hot in the winter and cool in
summer, the tiny doors opening and closing, the park fountains shooting their
methodical columns of water into the air.
Farther along, one would flit
across the great open field on which the glossy spaceships stood lined before
their hangars. Farther yet, one would catch sight of the river, the metal ships
resting along shore, delicate froth streaming from their sterns caused by the
never-ending operation of their vents.
Again, one would glide over the
city proper, seeking some sign of life in the broad avenues, the network of
streets, the painstaking pattern of dwellings in the living area, the metal
fastness of the commercial section.
The search would be fruitless.
All movement below would be seen
to be mechanical. And, knowing what city this was, one’s eyes would stop the
search for citizens and seek out those squat metal structures which stood a
half mile apart. These circular buildings housed the never-resting machines,
the humming geared servants of the city’s people.
These were the machines that did
all; cleared the air of impurities, moved the walks and opened the doors, sent
their synchronized impulses into the traffic lights, operated the fountains and
the spaceships, the river vessels and the ventilators.
These were the machines in whose
flawless efficacy the people of the city placed their casual faith.
At the moment, these people were
resting on their pneumatic couches in rooms. And the music that seeped from
their wall speakers, the cool breezes that flowed from their wall ventilators,
the very air they breathed—all these were of and from the machines, the
unfailing, the trusted, the infallible machines.
Now there was a buzzing in ears.
Now the city came alive.
***
There was a buzzing, buzzing.
From the black swirl of slumber, you heard it.
You wrinkled up your classic nose
and twitched the twenty neural rods that led to the highways of your
extremities.
The sound bore deeper, cut
through swaths of snooze and poked an impatient finger in the throbbing matter
of your brain. You twisted your head on the pillow and grimaced.
There was no cessation. With
stupored hand, you reached out and picked up the receiver. One eye propped open
by dint of will, you breathed a weary mutter into the mouthpiece.
“Captain Rackley!” The knifing
voice put your teeth on edge.
“Yes,” you said.
“You will report to your company
headquarters immediately!”
That swept away sleep and
annoyance as a petulant old man brushes chessmen from his board. Stomach
muscles drew into play and you were sitting. Inside your noble chest, that
throbbing meat ball, source of blood velocity, saw fit to swell and depress
with marked emphasis. Your sweat glands engaged in proper activity, ready for
action, danger, heroism.
“Is it...?” you started.
“Report immediately!” the voice
crackled, and there was a severe click in your ear.
You, Justin Rackley, dropped the
receiver—plunko—in its cradle and leaped from bed in a shower of fluttering
bedclothes.
You raced to your wardrobe door
and flung it open. Plunging into the depths, you soon emerged with your
skintight pants, the tunic for your forty-two chest. You donned said trousers
and tunic, flopped upon a nearby seat and plunged your arches into black
military boots.
***
And your face reflected
oh-so-grim thoughts. Combing out your thick blond hair, you were sure you knew
what the emergency was.
The Rustons! They were at it
again!
Awake now, you wrinkled your nose
with conscious aplomb. The Rustons made revolting food for thought with their
twelve legs, sign of alien progenitors, and their exudation of foul reptilian
slime.
As you scurried from your room,
leaped across the balustrade and down the stairs, you wondered once again where
these awful Rustons had originated, what odious interbreeding produced their
monster race. You wondered where they lived, where proliferated their grisly
stock, held their meetings of war, began the upward slither to those great
Earth fissures from which they massed in attack.
With nothing approaching answers
to these endless questions, you ran out of the dwelling and flew down the steps
to your faithful autocar.
Sliding in, pushing buttons,
levers, pedals, what have you, you soon had it darting through the streets
toward the broad highway that led to headquarters.
At this time of day, naturally,
there were very few people about. In point of fact you saw none. It was only a
few minutes later, when you turned sharply and zoomed up the ramp to the
highway, that you saw the other autocars whizzing toward the tower five miles
distant. You guessed, and were correct in guessing, that they were fellow
officers, all similarly ripped from slumber by mobilization.
Buildings flew past as you pushed
pedals deeper into their cavities, your face always grim, alive to danger,
grand warrior! True, you were not averse to the chance for activity after a
month of idleness. But the circumstances were
slightly distasteful. To think of the Rustons made a fellow shudder, eh?
What made them pour from their
unknown pits? Why did they seek to destroy the machines, let the acid canker of
their ooze eat through metal, make the teeth fall off the gears like petals off
a dying flower? What was their purpose? Did they mean to ruin the city? Govern its
inhabitants? Or slaughter them? Ugly questions, questions without answers.
Well, you thought as you drove
into headquarters parking area, thank heaven the Rustons had only managed to
get at a few of the outer machines, yours blessedly not included.
They, at least, had no more idea
than you where the Great Machine was, that fabulous fountainhead of energy,
driver of all machines. You slid the seat of your military trousers across the
seat of the autocar and jumped out into the wide lot. Your black boots clacked as
you ran toward the entrance. Other officers were getting out of autocars, too,
running across the area. None of them said anything; they all looked grim. Some
of them nodded curtly at you as you all stood together in the rising elevator.
Bad business, you thought.
With a tug at the groin, the door
gave a hydraulic gasp and opened. You stepped out and padded silently down the
hall to the high-ceilinged briefing room.
Already the room was almost
filled. The young men, invariably handsome and muscular, stood in gregarious
formations, discussing the Rustons in low voices. The gray soundproof walls
sucked in their comments and returned dead air.
***
The men gave you a look and a nod
when you entered, then returned to their talking. Justin Rackley, captain, that’s
you, sat down in a front seat.
Then you looked up. The door to
Upper Echelons was jerked open. The
General came striding through, a
sheaf of papers in his square fist.
His face was
grim too.
He stepped up on the rostrum and
slapped the papers on the thick table which stood there. Then he plumped down
on the edge of it and kicked his boot against one of its legs until all your fellow
officers had broken up their groups and hurriedly taken seats. With silence
creeping over all heads, he pursed his lips and banged a palm on the table surface.
“Gentlemen,” he said with that
voice which seemed to issue from an ancient tomb. “Once more the city lies in
grave danger.”
He then paused and looked capable
of handling all emergencies. You hoped that someday you might be General and
look capable of handling all emergencies. No reason why not, you thought.
“I will not take up precious
time,” the General went on, taking up precious time. “You all know your
positions, you all know your responsibilities. When this briefing is concluded,
you will report to the arsenal and draw out your ray guns. Always remember that
the Rustons must not be allowed to enter the machinery and live. Shoot to kill.
The rays are not harmful, repeat, not harmful to the machinery.”
He looked over you eager young
men.
“You also know,” he said. “The
dangers of Ruston poisoning. For this reason, that the slightest touch of their
stingers can lead to abysmal agonies of death, you will be assigned, as you
also know, a nurse trained in the combating of systemic poisons. Therefore,
after leaving the arsenal, you will report to the Preventive Section.”
He winked, a thoroughly
out-of-place wink.
“And remember,” he said, with a
broad roll of import in his voice. “This is war!
And only war!”
This, of course, brought on
appreciative smiles, a smattering of leers and many unmilitary asides. Upon
which the General snapped out of his brief role as chuckling confrere and
returned to strict autocratic detachment.
“Once assigned a nurse, those of
you whose machines are more than fifteen miles from the city will report to the
spaceport, there to be assigned a spacecar. All of you will then proceed with
utmost dispatch. Questions?”
No questions.
“I need hardly remind you,”
completed the General. “Of the importance of this defense. As you are well
aware, should the Rustons penetrate our city, spread their ravaging to the core
of our machine system, should they—heaven forfend!—locate the Great Machine, we
may then expect nothing but the most merciless of butchery. The city would be undone,
we would all be annihilated, Man would be overthrown.”
***
The men looked at him with
clenched fists, patriotism lurching through their brains like drunken satyrs,
yours included, Justin Rackley.
“That is all,” said the General,
waving his hand. “Good shooting.”
He jumped down from the platform
and swept through the doorway, the door opening magically a split second before
his imperious nose stood to shatter on its surface.
You stood up, muscles tingling.
Onward! Save our fair city!
You stepped through the broken
ranks. The elevator again, standing shoulder to shoulder with your comrades, a
fluttering sense of hyper-awareness coursing your healthy young body.
The arsenal room. Sound lost in
the heavily padded interior. You, on line, grim-faced always, shuffling along,
weapon bound. A counter; it was like an exchange market. You showed the man
your identity card and he handed you a shiny ray gun and a shoulder case of
extra ray pellets. Then you passed through the door and scuffed down the
rubberized steps to the Preventive Section. Corpuscles took a carnival ride
through your veins.
You were fourth in line and she
was fourth in line; that’s how she was assigned to you.
You perused her contours, noting
that her uniform, although similar to yours, somehow hung differently on her.
This sidetracked martial contemplations for the nonce. Zowie hoopla—your libido clapped its calloused hands.
“Captain Rackley,” said the man. “This
is Miss Lieutenant Forbes. She is your only guarantee against death should you
be stung by a Ruston. See that she remains close by at all times.”
This seemed hardly an onerous commission
and you saluted the man. You then exchanged a flicker of lids with the young
lady and intoned a gruff command, relative to departure. This roused the two of
you to walk to the elevator.
Riding down in silence, you cast
glances at her. Long forgotten threnodies twitched into life in your
revitalized brain. You were much taken by the dark ringlets that hung over her
forehead and massed on her shoulders like curled black fingers. Her eyes, you
noted, were brown and soft as eyes in a dream.
And why shouldn’t they be?
Yet something lacked. Some
retardation kept bringing you down from ethereal cogitation. Could it, you
wondered, be duty? And, remembering what you were out to do, you suddenly
feared again. The pink clouds marched away in military formation.
Miss Lieutenant Forbes remained
silent until the spacecar which you were assigned was flitting across the sky
beyond the outskirts of the city. Then, following your somewhat banal overtures
regarding the weather, she smiled her pretty little smile and showed her pretty
little dimples.
“I am but sixteen,” she
announced.
“Then this is your first time.”
“Yes,” she replied, gazing afar. “I
am very frightened.”
You nodded, you patted her knee
with what you meant to be a parental manner, but which, post-haste, brought the
crimson of modesty flaming into her cheeks.
“Just stay close to me,” you
said, trying hard for a double meaning. “I’ll take care of you.”
Primitive, but good enough for
sixteen. She blushed more deeply. The city towers flashed beneath. Far off,
like a minute button on the fringes of spiderweb, you saw your machine. You
eased the wheel forward; the tiny ship dipped down and began a long glide
toward Earth. You kept your eyes on the control board with strict attention, wondering
about this strange sense of excitement running pell-mell through your body, not
knowing whether it presaged combat fatigue of one sort or another.
This was war. The city first.
Hola!
***
The ship floated down to and
hovered over the machine as you threw on the air brakes. Slowly, it sank to the
roof like a butterfly settling on a flower.
You threw off the switch, heart
pounding, all forgotten but the present danger. Grabbing the ray gun, you
jumped out and ran to the edge of the roof.
Your machine was beyond the
perimeter of the city. There were fields about. Your keen eyes flashed over the
ground.
There was no sign of the enemy.
You hurried back to the ship. She
was still sitting inside watching you. You turned the knob and the communicator
system spilled out its endless drones of information. You stood impatiently
until the announcer spoke your machine number and said the Rustons were within
a mile of it.
You heard her drawn-in breath and
noted the upward cast of frightened eyes in your direction. You turned off the
set.
“Come, we’ll go inside,” you
said, holding the ray gun in a delightfully shaking hand. It was fun to be
frightened. A fine sense of living dangerously. Wasn’t that why you were here? You
helped her out. Her hand was cold. You squeezed it and gave her a half smile of
confidence. Then, locking the door to the spacecar, to keep the foe out, you
took her arm and the two of you went down the stairs. As you entered the main
room, your head was at once filled with the smooth hum of machinery.
Here, at this juncture of the
adventure, you put down your ray gun and ammunition and explained the machinery
to her. It is to be noted that you had no particular concern for the machinery
as you spoke, being more aware of her proximity. Such charm, such youth, crying
out for comfort.
You soon held her hand again.
Then you had your arm around her lithesome waist and she was close. Something
other than military defense planned itself in your mind.
Came the moment when she flicked
up her drowsy lids and looked you smack-dab in the eye, as is the archaic
literary passage. You found her violet eyes somewhat unbalancing. You drew her
closer. The perfume of her rosy breath tied casual knots in your limbs. And yet
there was still something holding you back.
Swish! Slap!
She stiffened and cried out.
The Rustons were at the walls!
***
You raced for the table upon
which your ray gun rested. On the couch next to the table was your ammunition.
You slung the case over your shoulder. She ran up to you and, sternly, you
handed her the preventive case. You felt like the self-assured General when he
was in a grim mood.
“Keep the needles loaded and
handy,” you said. “I may...”
The sentence died as another
great slobbering Ruston slapped against the wall. The sound of its huge suckers
slurped on the outside. They were searching for the machinery in the basement.
You checked the gun. It was
ready.
“Stay here,” you muttered. “I
have to go down.”
You didn’t hear what she said.
You dashed down the stairs and came bouncing out into the basement just as the
first horror gushed over the edge of a window onto its metal floor like a
stream of gravity-defying lava.
***
The row of blinking yellow eyes
turned on you; your flesh crawled. The great brown-gold monstrosity began to
scuttle across toward the machines with an oily squish. You almost froze in
fear. Then instinct came to the fore. You raised the gun quickly. A crackling brilliantine
blue ray leaped from the muzzle, touched the scaly body and enveloped it.
Screeching and the smell of frying oil filled the air. When the ray had
dissipated, the dead Ruston lay black and smoking on the floor, its slime
running across the welded seams.
You heard the sound of suckers
behind. You whirled, blasted the second of the Rustons into greasy oblivion.
Still another slid over the window edge and started toward you. Another burst
from the gun and another scorched hulk lay twitching on the metal.
You swallowed a great lump of
excitement in your throat, your head snapping around, your body leaping from
side to side. In a second, two more of them were moving toward you. Two bursts
of ray; one missed. The second monster was almost upon you before you burst it
into flaming chunks as it reared up to plunge its black stingers in your chest.
You turned quickly, cried out in
horror.
One Ruston was just slipping down
the stairs, another swishing toward you, the long stingers aimed at your heart.
You pressed the button. A scream caught in your throat.
You were out of pellets!
You leaped to the side and the
Ruston fell forward. You tore open the case and fumbled with the pellets. One
fell and shattered uselessly on the metal.
Your hands were ice, they shook
terribly. The blood pounded through your veins, your hair stood on end. You
felt scared and amused.
The Ruston lunged again as you
slid the pellet into the ray gun. You dodged again—not enough! The end of one
stinger slashed through your tunic, laid open your arm. You felt the burning
poison shoot into your system.
You pressed the button and the
monster disappeared in a cloud of unguent smoke. The basement machinery was
secure against attack—the Rustons had bypassed it.
You leaped for the stairway. You
had to save the machines, save her, save yourself!
Your boots banged up the metal
chairs. You lunged into the great room of machines and swept a glance around.
A gasp tore open your mouth. She
was collapsed on a couch, sprawled, inert. A Ruston line of slime ran down the
front of her swelling tunic. You whirled and, as you did, the Ruston vanished
into the machinery, pushing its scaly body through the gear spaces. The slime
dropped from its body and watery jaws. The machine stopped, started again, the racked
wheels groaning.
***
The city! You leaped to the
machine’s edge and shot a blast from the ray gun into it. The brilliantine blue
ray licked out, missed the Ruston. You fired again. The Ruston moved too fast,
hid behind the wheels. You ran around the machine, kept on firing.
You glanced at her. How long did
the poison take? They never said. Already in your flesh, however, the burning
had begun. You felt as if you were going up in flames, as if great pieces of
your body were about to fall off.
You had to get an injection for
yourself and her.
Still the Ruston eluded you. You
had to stop and put another pellet in the gun. The interior began to whirl
around you; you were overpoweringly dizzy. You pressed the button again and
again. The ray darted into the machine.
You reeled around with a sob and
tore open your collar. You could hardly breathe. The smell of the singed suet,
of the rays, filled your head. You stumbled around the machine, shot out
another ray at the fast-moving Ruston.
Then, finally, when you were
about to keel over, you got a good target. You pressed the button, the Ruston
was enveloped in flame, fell in molten bits beneath the machine, was swallowed
up by the waste exhaust. You dropped the ray gun and staggered over to her.
The hypodermics were on the
table.
You tore open her tunic and
jabbed a needle into her soft white shoulder, shudderingly injected the
antidote into her veins. You stuck another into your own shoulder, felt the
sudden coolness run through your flesh and your bloodstream.
You sank down beside her,
breathing heavily and closing your eyes. The violence of activity had exhausted
you. You felt as though you would have to rest a month after this. And, of
course, you would.
She groaned. You opened your eyes
and looked at her. Your heavy breathing began again, but this time you knew
where the excitement was coming from. You kept looking at her. A warm heat
lapped at your limbs, caressed your heart.
Her eyes were on you.
“I...” you said.
Then all holding back was ended,
all doubt undone. The city, the Rustons, the machines—the danger was over and
forgotten. She ran a caressing hand over your cheek.
***
“And when next you opened your
eyes,” finished the doctor. “You were back in this room.”
Rackley laughed, his head
quivering on the pillow, his hands twitching in glee.
“But my dear doctor,” he laughed.
“How fantastically clever of you to know everything. However do you do it,
naughty man?”
The doctor looked down at the
tall handsome man who lay on the bed, still shaking with breathless laughter.
“You forget,” he said, “I inject
you. Quite natural that I should know what happens then.”
“Oh, quite! Quite!” cried Justin
Rackley. “Oh, it was utterly, utterly fantastic. Imagine me!” He ran strong
fingers over the swelling biceps of his arm. “Me, a hero!”
He clapped his hands together and
deep laughter rumbled in his chest, his white teeth flashed against the glowing
tan of his face. The sheet slipped, revealing the broad suppleness of his
chest, the tightly ridged stomach muscles.
“Oh, dear me,” he sighed. “Dear
me, what would this dull existence be
without your blessed injections to ease our endless boredom?”
The doctor looked coldly at him,
his strong white fingers tightening into a bloodless fist. The thought plunged
a cruel knife into his brain—this is the end of our race, the sorry peak of Man’s
evolution. This is the final corruption.
Rackley yawned and stretched his
arms. “I must rest.” He peered up at the doctor. “It was such a fatiguing dream.”
He began to giggle, his great
blond head lolling on the pillow. His hands striking at the sheet as though he
would die of amusement.
“Do tell me,” he gasped. “What on
earth have you in those utterly delightful injections? I’ve asked you so often.”
The doctor picked up his plastic
bag. “Merely a combination of chemicals designed to exacerbate the adrenals on
one hand and, on the other, to inhibit the higher brain centers. In short,” he
finished. “A potpourri of intensification and reduction.”
“Oh, you always say that,” said
Justin Rackley. “But it is delightful.
Utterly, charmingly delightful. You will be back in a month for my next dream
and my dream playback?”
The doctor blew out a weary gust
of breath. “Yes,” he said, making no effort to veil his disgust. “I’ll be back
next month.”
“Thank heavens,” said Rackley, “I’m
done with that awful Ruston dream for another five months. Ugh! It’s so
frightfully vile! I like the pleasanter dreams about mining and transporting
ores from Mars and the Moon, and the adventures in food centers. They’re so
much nicer. But...” His lips twitched. “Do
have more of those pretty young girls in them.”
His strong, weary body twisted in
delight.
“Oh, do,” he murmured, his eyes shutting.
He sighed and turned slowly and
exhaustedly onto his broad, muscular side.
***
The doctor walked through the
deserted streets, his face tight with the old frustration. Why? Why? His mind
kept repeating the word.
Why must we continue to sustain
life in the cities? For what purpose? Why do we not let civilization in its
last outpost die as it means to die? Why struggle to keep such men alive?
Hundreds, thousands of Justin
Rackleys—well-kept animals, mechanically bred and fed and massaged into fair
and handsome form. Mechanically restrained, too, from physically turning into
the fat white slugs that, mentally, they already were and would bodily resemble
if left untended. Or die.
Why not let them? Why visit them
every month, fill their veins with hypnotic drugs and sit back and watch them,
one by one, go bursting into their dream worlds to escape boredom? Must he
endlessly send his suggestions into their loosened brainways, fly them to
planets and moons, crowd all forms of love and grand adventure into their mock-heroic
dreams?
The doctor slumped tiredly and
went into another dorm-building. More figures, strongly or beautifully made,
passive on couches. More dream injections.
He made them, watched the figures
stand and stumble to the wardrobes.
Explorers’ outfits this time,
pith helmets and attractive shorts, snake boots and bared limbs. He stood at
the window, saw them clamber into their autocars and drive away. He sat back
and waited for them to return, knowing every move they would make, because he
made them in his mind.
They would go out to the
hydroponics tanks and fight off an invasion of Energy Eaters. Bigger than the
Rustons and made of pure force, they threatened to suck the sustenance from the
plants in the growing trays, the living, formless meat swelling immortally in
the nutrient solutions. The Energy Eaters would be beaten off, of course. They always
were.
Naturally. They were only dreams.
Creatures of fantastic illusion, conjured in eager dreaming minds by chemical
magic and dreary scientific incantation.
But what would all these Justin
Rackleys say, these handsome and hopeless ruins of torpid flesh, if they found
out how they were being fooled?
Found out that the Rustons were
only mental fictions for objectifying simple rust and wear and converting them
into fanciful monsters. Monsters which alone could feebly arouse the dim
instinct for self-preservation which just barely existed in this lost race.
Energy Eaters—beetles and spores and exhausted growth solutions. Mine Borers—vaporous
beasties that had to be blasted out of the Lunar and Martian metal deposits.
And others, still others, all of them threats to that which runs and feeds and
renews a city.
And what would they say, these
Justin Rackleys, upon the discovery that each of them, in their ‘dreams,’ had
done genuine manual work? That their ray guns were spray guns or grease guns or
air hammers, their death rays no more than streams of lubrication for rusting
machines or insecticides or liquid fertilizer?
What would they say if they found
out how they were tricked into breeding with aphrodisiacs in the guise of
anti-poison shots? How they, with no healthy interest in procreation, were drugged
into the furtherance of their spineless strain, a strain whose only function
was to sustain the life-giving machines.
***
In a month he would return to
Justin Rackley, Captain Justin
Rackley. A month for rest, these people were so devoid of energy. It took a
month to build up even enough strength to endure an injection of hypnotics, to
oil a machine or tend a tray, and to bring forth one puny cell of life.
All for the machines, the city,
for man...
The doctor spat on the immaculate
floor of the room with the pneumatic couches.
The people were the machines,
more than the machines themselves. A slave race, a detestable residue,
hopeless, without hope. Oh, how they would wail and swoon, he thought, getting
grim pleasure in the notion, were they allowed to walk through that vast
subterranean tunnel to the giant chamber where the Great Machine stood, that supposed
source of all energy, and saw why they had to be tricked into working. The
Great Machine had been designed to eliminate all human labor, tending the minor
machines, the food plants, the mining.
But some wise one on the Control
Council, centuries before, had had the wit to smash the Great Machine’s
mechanical brain. And now the Justin Rackleys would have to see, with their own
unbelieving eyes, the rust, the rot, the giant twisted death of it...
But they wouldn’t.
Their job was to dream of
adventurous work, and work while dreaming.
For how long?
End
The book cover for Ron Goulart’s When
the Waker Sleeps is oddly appropriate for today’s story as an
illustration. It is a fun book, one has to admit.
Even for escapist fantasy.
Louis Shalako books and stories are available
from Google Play. Some are always free.
Don’t forget to rank or review!
Thank you for reading.
