Warning voices were urging Johnson away from this place, screaming at him to get away while he had the chance. Inside of him, tiny voices were shouting warnings, his skin was reporting sweat again, his brain was reporting the pressure of an emotional overload. Inside of him was still another voice insisting that here he dealt with illusion and hallucination, shouting at him, "You saw a space ship where no space ship could exist! In this place how can you determine reality?" * * * * * The expression on the face of the Venusian was very strange but it was some kind of a smile. Seeing it, Johnson hesitated, spoke impulsively. "We three are a group of human scientists who have come to Venus to ..." he hesitated. "Damn it, Johnny!" Caldwell gritted. "Tell him, Johnny," Martin spoke. "There may be more involved in telling him than we know. The recordings will tell." "We came here to investigate the dreaming," Johnson spoke. "Ah," Unger said. Shades of feelings played across his face. "You are the three humans who came asking about the dreaming! I have heard of you." "We asked for information, knowledge, understanding," Johnson's voice got hard again. "We sought these things. What did we get?" "You asked for bread and we dreamers gave you a stone," Unger spoke. "What?" Johnson gasped. The shift to a religious framework startled him. He had not thought that a Venusian understood such things. "Perhaps the stone we gave you was more palatable than the bread you asked for," Unger continued. "But--" "However, when your request was denied, you did not stop seeking?" Unger asked. "Of course not! We don't belong to a race that stops seeking. We sought other ways to get the information." "Is the information important to you?" "Yes." "What luck did you have with the other ways?" Johnson shook his head. Bitterness came up in him. "None. The Dreaming Rooms were everywhere, the Dreamers were a group apart. The Dreamers would not talk. No other Venusian ever admitted knowing anything." "And so--" "One of us, the most impetuous and perhaps the most brilliant of us, became impatient." Imperceptibly Johnson nodded toward Martin. "We knew there was danger in the Dreaming Rooms. He ignored that danger. He slipped away from us. I think perhaps he hid from us to protect us from the danger he intended to face. We discovered that possibly he had come here tonight. We did not know for sure that he was here until a Venusian discovered the recorder in operation." Martin stepped forward and took the recorder from Unger's hands. The Venusian released it without reluctance. "So you came here tonight to find and help a friend?" Unger said. "Yes. He is impetuous and impatient. He wants answers." "And I've got 'em right here." Martin clutched the recorder in a tighter grip. "Let's get out of this joint. I want to see what these wires have on them. Come on, Johnny. You cover that Dreamer and we will take him with us--"