"You're always rushing around like the enzymes we feed into the
'ponic-vats. I'm sure your appointment will keep. I'm also sure it is
unwise, this appointment."
Ker-jon prayed silently that she wouldn't part her lips invitingly for
a kiss, because then indeed he might decide to forego his appointment
with the psych-tech. Apparently, that did not enter Cluny-ann's mind.
She merely walked out into the corridor, hands still on hips, blocking
his path.
"Tomorrow we try to smash the Mutant-makers," she told him. "But today
you must carry your dream with you and have it interpreted. Won't it
keep? If something lurks in that dream which holds the key to our
plans--_poof!_ No more plans. Stay, Ker-jon."
Gently but firmly, he pushed her out of the way, smiled for a moment
when she struggled futilely against the muscles of his good right arm.
He said, as he went on down the corridor, "We can take lunch together.
I'll feel more like eating after this nightmare is explained, anyway."
* * * * *
The psych-tech, Ab'nath-Jawg, wore an immaculate white smock over
his scrawny frame, a pair of spectacles over his big, watery eyes.
Ker-jon saw no reason for the white smock; perhaps tradition said all
psych-techs were to wear white smocks, and that was that.
"Ker-jon," Ab'nath mumbled, looking at his records, "bio-tech first
class, non-mutant, no mutations in the family line. Right?"
Ker-jon nodded.
"Your request for a visit says you've been having a dream which has
recurred frequently. An unpleasant dream?"
"Ummmm, no; not in itself. But I think--"
"That somehow its implications are unpleasant for you--is that it? Yes?
I see. May I have the tape, please?"
Wordless, Ker-jon handed him the little spool, waited while the
psych-tech snapped it into place in a small projecting machine. After
that, Ab'nath flicked a switch, and the lights in the little room
dimmed.
In the center of the room stood a large transparent cube, as long in
each of its three dimensions as a tall man. Within it now, lights
pulsed, flashed, coalesced. Then they settled back, playing only at the
corners, waiting.
Ker-jon held his breath. A tri-dimensional, full color replica of his
dream filled the cube.
There was Ker-jon, but a hairless, three-ridged-mutant Ker-jon,
and there in the crook of his left arm a slim blonde girl who
could have been Cluny-ann, except that she too bore the marks of
a mutant--different strain this time, with delicate silver scales
covering parts of her fair body. Under a large bell-jar in the
foreground, a compact black machine hummed shrilly, a light above its
squat main body flashing on and off, on and off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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