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jump, or you could spend time enough between the jumps for the temporal energy
to disperse.
He shook his head. I can t do that. Can t you just give me one of these
things?
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No. It is impossible. We haven t traveled for centuries.
Jesus.
He thought about what he wanted to ask for a moment, something to fill the
space while his head processed what he d learned. This is a pretty big city,
he said. There don t seem to be many of you about for something this size.
The city has been here for a long time, she said. A long, long time.
Before there were lots more, but many became tired or bored. They left, or
stopped living. Here, some would stay. For thousands of years we thought we
were alone, or too far away. There were others like you, others that we could
dream.
Dream? I don t understand.
As you dream us, we dream you. Like now. You join us in the place of our
dreaming.
Jack blinked a couple of times as he processed that. You said there were
others.
Billie nodded. Uh-huh.
But then?
They were either too primitive, or too far away. We are an old race. We have
long given up the urge to travel. We still wish to dream with others. To dream
alone is limited, but there is the challenge.
He stared at the young girl sitting next to him, watching her feet as they
swung back and forth. She turned to look at him and grinned.
Hi, Jack, she said.
Is this a normal dream? It doesn t feel like it s normal.
Billie s grin slipped away and she became serious again. I don t know.
Maybe.
Well, of course it wasn t normal. He was damned well communicating with
aliens. What was normal about that?
Wait, he said. What happened to the City of Trees? What happened on
Mandala?
Billie was concentrating again. She was working her mouth as she thought.
Oh, she said after a while. That s a very old place. There was another
race. There was a war. We lost many. That time has passed long ago.
He nodded. It made sense. He suddenly realized he didn t know what else to
ask. He was the wrong person to be having this conversation. What did he know
about talking to an alien civilization? Let someone else do this. He had other
things to take care of.
It s all right, Jack, said Billie. They understand.
They knew what he was thinking? Even in the dream?
Damn.
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And Jack, she said with a quick frown. You need to be careful now.
Huh? Careful of what?
There are still other races out there. They will know about you. If not now,
soon. Remember what we said about a war. You have announced your presence
now.
An image of the City of Trees flashed through his head. Damn.
Careful of those around you. Bye, Jack, said Billie, and then she was gone,
and waking consciousness filled his senses with awareness.
Jack jumped from the bed and started gathering his clothes together, shaking
them out and laying them on the table before getting dressed. There was faint
motion all around him, but he was still distracted from the dreamstate and
didn t pay much attention. His eyewear was starting to cause him discomfort
too, and he removed it, massaging his temple and rubbing at the bridge of his
nose where the constant pressure had begun to pinch. Without the light
enhancement, darkness immediately obscured his vision.
He stood there in shadow, taking stock. First, he had to find Dog and get
away from this place, work out a way to deal with their problem. He was
tempted to go back into dreamstate, but he knew, deep in his gut, that he
wasn t going to find the solution there. Now all that mattered was tracking
down Billie and Antille. Her dream image had only spurred him more.
Still thinking, he replaced the shades, and was immediately startled by an
alien looming above him close by. It dipped the upper part of its central
trunk toward him and then straightened. Dog was right: They could be
coatracks. Coatracks for giants, if it were not for the missing hooks at the
top. How they built anything or did anything with those strange limbless
cylindrical bodies, he had no clue. A weird thought came to him then. They
seemed to spend most of their time stationary, and the movements, the stubby
petal-like limbs, made him wonder if they d actually evolved from trees.
Sentient trees? No, it didn t make sense. Why would a tree want to build a
city? The City of Trees. Yeah, right. He shook his head.
So now what? he said to the room.
Jack had no idea if the aliens could hear him in the normal sense. He still
hadn t worked out how they perceived things, even though it was fairly clear
that they were aware of what went on around them. He looked around seeking
some clue, and noticed the pack and weapon where Dog had left them, so he
crossed and retrieved both. He stood on the spot, the weight of the rifle in
his left hand, the pack hitched on his shoulder, and looked around the room,
waiting for some further response. An alien across the other side stirred into
action, swinging its legs around and tottering toward the room s center. Just
for a moment it reminded Jack of an absurd giant silvery spider, or no, a
praying mantis.
He waited, presuming the alien was going to move to where he was, but it
stopped about sixty paces away and was suddenly still again.
Hey, he said.
Nothing.
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How long was he supposed to wait? He had no idea how these creatures
perceived time. What if it didn t mean anything to them? He chewed at the
inside of his bottom lip, wondering what he was going to do next.
Jack crossed the room, walking around a cluster of three aliens, and avoiding
another, all of which seemed completely oblivious to him.
The noises were coming from the square place in the corner above him, and he
stood, his head tilted back, watching. The buzz became a hum, and a couple of
seconds later the platform slowly lowered from the ceiling back down to the
floor. This time it bore another alien. Jack tracked it, watching as it
settled with a slight bounce about two feet above the floor. The alien swung
its legs forward, extending one of them down, and then the other, until both
were placed firmly on the paved surface. For a moment Jack thought it was
going to topple forward, but as it moved its rear limbs forward, the central
body canted backward until the other legs had also met the floor. The central
body then straightened.
Jack waited.
It took several minutes before the alien was spurred into motion again. It
tottered toward Jack until it stood right in front of him, towering above his
head. The central trunk bent toward him, but this time it stayed in that
position, looking as if it was peering down at him.
Um, hi, said Jack.
The central part straightened again.
What now?
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