The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond HamiltonЧитать онлайн книгу.
He felt that it would drive him to insanity if the puzzle persisted much longer. Yet how was he to solve the riddle?
“Maybe a good psychoanalyst,” Henry thought doubtfully. “A fellow like that might be able to help.”
He shrank from his own idea. It would mean telling the psychoanalyst all about his dream-life. And that was something he had not done for years, not since he was a small boy.
When he was a boy, Henry Stevens had confidendy told his family and chums all about his strange dreams—how each night when he slept he was another boy, the boy Khal Kan in Jotan, on the world Thar. He had told them in detail of his life as Khal Kan, of the wonderful black city Jotan, of the red sun and the two pink moons.
His parents had at first laughed at his stories, then had become worried, and finally had forbidden him to tell any more such falsehoods. They had put it all down to a too-vivid imagination.
And his boyhood chums had jeered at his tales, admiring his ability as a liar but rudely expressing their opinions when he had earnestly maintained that he did dream it all, every night.
So Henry had learned not to tell of his dream-life. He had kept that part of his life locked away, and even Emma had never heard of it.
“But still, if a psychoanalyst could help me find out which is real,” he thought desperately, “it’d be worth trying—”
* * * *
That afternoon when his work was finished, Henry found himself entering the offices of a Doctor Willis Thorn whom he had heard of as the best psychoalanlyst in the city. He had made an appointment by telephone.
Doctor Thorn wis a solidly built man of forty, with the body of a football player, and calm, friendly eyes. He listened with quiet attention as Henry Stevens, slowly at first and then more eagerly, poured out his story.
“And you say the dream continues logically, from night to night?” Doctor Thorn asked. “That’s strange. I’ve never heard of a psychosis quite like that.”
“What I want to know is—which is real?” Henry blurted. “Is there any way in which you could tell me whether it’s Thar or Earth that’s real?”
Doctor Thorn smiled quietly. “I’m not a figment of a dream, I assure you. You see me sitting here, quite real and solid. Too solid, I’m afraid—I’ve been putting on weight lately.”
Henry, puzzledly thoughtful, missed the pleasantry. “You seem real and solid,” he admitted, “and so does’ this office and everything else, to me. But then I, Henry Stevens, may only be a part of the dream myself—Khal Kan’s dream.”
Doctor Thorn’s brow wrinkled. “I see your point. It’s logical enough, from a certain standpoint. But it’s also logical that you and I and Earth are real, and that Khal Kan and his world are only an extraordinarily vivid dream your mind has developed as compensation for a monotonous life.”
“I don’t know,” Henry muttered. “When I’m Khai Kan, I’m pretty sure that Henry Stevens is just a dream. But I, Henry Stevens, am not so sure. Of course, Khal Kan isn’t the kind of man to brood or doubt much about anything—he’s a fighter and reckless adventurer.”
Doctor Thorn was definitely interested. “Look here, Mr. Stevens, suppose you write out a complete history of this dreamlife of yours—this life as Khal Kan—and bring it with you the next time. It may help me.”
Henry left the office, with his new hope on the wane. He didn’t think the psychoanalyst could do much to solve his problem.
After all, he thought depressedly as he drove homeward, there was hardly any way in which you could prove that you really existed. You felt you did exist, everyone around you was sure they did too, but there was no real proof that that whole existence was not just a dream.
His mind came back to Khal Kan’s present predicament. How was he going to escape from the drylanders? He brooded on that, through dinner.
“Henry Stevens, you haven’t been listening to one word!” his wife’s voice aroused him.
Emma’s plump, good-natured face was a little exasperated as she peered across the table at him.
“I declare, you’re getting more dopey every day!” she told him snappily.
“I’m just sleepy, I guess,” Henry apologized. “I think I’ll turn in.”
She shook her head. “You go to bed earlier every night. It’s not eight o’clock yet.”
Henry finally was permitted to retire. He felt an apprehensive eagerness as he undressed. What was going to happen to Khal Kan?
He stretched out and lay in the dark room, half dreading and half anticipating the coming of sleep. Finally the dark tide of drowsiness began to roll across his mind.
He knew vaguely that he was falling asleep. He slipped into darkness. And, as always, the dream came at once. As always, he dreamed that he was awaking—
* * * *
Khal Kan awoke, in the dark, cold tent. His whole back was a throbbing pain, and his bound arms and legs were numb.
He lay thinking a moment of his dream. How real it always seemed, the nightly dream in which he was a timid little man named Henry Stevens, on a queer, drab world called Earth! When he was dreaming—when he was the man Henry Stevens—he even thought that he, Khal Kan, was a dream!
Dreams within dreams—but they meant nothing. Khal Kan had long ago quit worrying about his strange dream-life, The wise men of Jotan whom he had consulted had spoken doubtfully of witchcraft Their explanations had explained nothing. And life was too short, there were too many enemies to slay and girls to kiss and flagons to drink, to worry much about dreams.
“But this is no dream, worse luck!” thought Khal Kan, testing his bonds. “The prince of Jotan, trussed up like a damned hyrk—”
He stiffened. A shadow was moving toward him in the dark tent. It bent over him and there was a muffled flash of steel. Amazedly, Khal Kan felt the bonds of his wrists and ankles relax. They had been cut.
The shadow sniggered. “What would you do without little Zoor to take care of you, Prince?”
“Zoor?” Khal Kan’s whisper was astonished. “How in the name of—”
“Easily, Prince,” sniggered Zoor. “I always carry a flat blade in the sole of my sandal. But it took me all night to get it out and cut myself free. It’s almost dawn.”
The cold in the tent was piercing. Through a crack in the flap, Khal Kan could see the eastern sky beginning to pale a little. He could also hear the drylanders on guard out there, shuffling to keep warm.
Khal Kan got to his feet while Zoor was freeing Brusul. Then the little man used his sliver of steel to slice a rip through the back wall of the tent. They three slipped out into the starry darkness.
Khal Kan chuckled a little to himself as he remembered how his dream-self—the man Henry Stevens in that dream-world—had worried about his plight. As though there was anything worth worrying about in that.
They did not stop for a whispered consultation until they were well away from the tent in which they had been kept. The whole camp of the drylanders was still, except for an occasional drunken warrior staggering between the dark tents, and the stamping of tethered horses not far away.
“The horses are this way,” muttered Brusul. “We can be over the Dragals before these swart-skinned devils know we’re gone.”
“Wait!” commanded Khal Kan’s whisper. “I’m not going without that girl. Golden Wings.”
“Hell take your obstinacy!” snarled Brusul. “Do you think you can steal the drylanders’ princess right out of their camp? They’d chase us to the end of the world. Beside, what would you want with that little desert-cat who had you flogged raw?”
Khal