The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iv Part 111

"Hi. What're you doing?"

"We're looking at the dragon again," said Vera. "Join us?"

Brunei thought of the dragon for a moment. The toadstool disappeared, and the by-now-familiar bovine dragon took its place. In the last few days, they had discovered that if any two of them concentrated on something long enough to "materialize" it, anyone else who wanted to could see it in a moment.

"What's so interesting about that silly dragon?" said Brunei.

"How about the camel?" said Lazar.

The dragon turned into the two-humped brown camel.

"Phooey!" said Lin Pey.

"O.K.," said Vera, "so what do you want?"

Lin Pey thought for a moment.

"How about a meadow?" he said. "A soft lawn of green gra.s.s, the sky is blue, and there are a few white clouds...."

"Clover is blooming," said Lazar. "Smell it."

Brunei reclined on the soft green gra.s.s. The smell of the earth beneath him was warm and moist. "A few apple trees here and there," he said, and there was shade.

"Look over the hill!" said Lazar. "There's the dragon!"

"Will you please get rid of that dragon?" snapped Brunei.

"O.K., Ollie, O.K."

One month out: "Get out of the way!" yelled Brunei. He gave the dragon a kick. It mooed plaintively.

"That wasn't very nice, Ollie," said Lazar.

"That dragon is always underfoot," said Brunei. "Why don't you get rid of it?"

"I've taken a liking to it," said Lazar. "Besides, what about your Saint Bernard?"

"This s.h.i.+p is getting too cluttered up with everyone's hallucinations," said Brunei. "Ever since ... when was it, a week ago?... ever since we've been able to conjure 'em up by ourselves, and make everyone else see 'em."

Daker dematerialised the woman on his lap. "Why don't we get together?" he said.

"Get together?"

"Yes. We could agree on an environment. Look at this common room for example. What a mess! Here, it's a meadow, there it's a beach, a palace, a boudoir."

"You mean we should make it the same for all of us?" asked Lazar.

"Sure. We can have whatever we want in our cabins, but let's make some sense out of the common room."

"Good idea," said Brunei. "I'll call the others."

Three months out: Brunei stepped through the stuccoed portal, and into the central Spanish garden. He noticed that the sky was blue, with a few fleecy white clouds.

But then, the weather was always good. They had agreed on it.

Lazar, Ingrid, Lin Pey and Vera were sitting on the green lawn surrounding the fountain.

Daker, Joby, Linda and Donner preferred the shade, and lounged against the white arabesqued wall which enclosed the garden on four sides, broken only by four arched entrance portals.

The garden had been a good compromise, thought Brunei. Something for everyone. Fresh air and sun-s.h.i.+ne, but also the mental security offered by the walls, which also provided shade for those who wanted it. A fountain, a few palm trees, gra.s.s, flowers, even the little formal j.a.panese rock garden that Lin Pey had insisted on.

"h.e.l.lo, Ollie," said Lazar. "Nice day."

"Isn't it always?" replied Brunei. "How about a little shower?"

"Maybe tomorrow."

"I notice a lot of sleeping people today," said Brunei.

"Yes," said Lin Pey. "By now, the garden seems to be able to maintain itself."

"You think it has a separate existence?" asked Ingrid.

"Of course not," said Vera. "Our subconscious minds are maintaining it. It's probably here when we're all asleep."

"No way of telling that," said Brunei. "Besides, how can it exist when we're asleep, when it doesn't really exist to begin with?"

"Semantics, Ollie, semantics."

Brunei took a bottle of Omnidrene out of his pocket. "Time to charge up the old batteries again," he said.

He pa.s.sed out the pills.

"I notice Marsha is still in her cabin."

"Yeah," said Lazar, "she keeps to herself a lot. No great-"

Just then, Marsha burst into the garden, screaming: "Make it go away! Make it go away!"

Behind her slithered a gigantic black snake, with a head as big as a horse's, and bulging red eyes.

"I thought we agreed to leave our private hallucinations in our cabins," snapped Brunei.

"I tried! I tried! I don't want it around, but it won't go away! Do something!"

Ten feet of snake had already entered the garden. The thing seemed endless.

"Take it easy," said Lazar. "Let's all concentrate and think it away."

They tried to erase the snake, but it just rolled its big red eyes.

"That won't work," said Vera. "Her subconscious is still fighting us. Part of her must want the snake here. We've all got to be together to erase it."

Marsha began to cry. The snake advanced another two feet.

"Oh, quiet!" rasped Lazar. "Ollie, do I have your permission to bring my dragon into the garden? He'll make short work of the snake."

Brunei scowled. "You and your dragon.... Oh, maybe it'll work."

Instantly, the green dragon was in the garden. But it was no longer five feet long and bovine.

It was a good twelve feet long, with cold reptilian eyes and big yellow fangs.

It took one look at the snake, opened its powerful jaws, and belched a huge tongue of orange flame.

The serpent was incinerated. It disappeared.

Brunei was trembling. "What happened, Lazar?" he said. "That's not the same stupid little dragon."

"Hah ... hah...." squeaked Lazar. "He's ... uh ... grown...."

Brunei suddenly noticed that Lazar was ashen. He also noticed that the dragon was turning in their direction.

"Get it out of here, Lazar! Get it out of here!"

Lazar nodded. The dragon flickered and went pale, but it was over a minute before it disappeared entirely.

Six months out: Things wandered the pa.s.sageways and haunted the cabins. Marsha's snake was back. There was Lazar's dragon, which seemed to grow larger every day. There was also a basilisk, a pterodactyl, a vampire bat with a five-foot wingspread, an old-fas.h.i.+oned red spade-tailed demon and other a.s.sorted horrors.

Even Oliver Brunei's friendly Saint Bernard had grown to monstrous size, turned pale green, and grown large yellow fangs.

Only the Spanish garden in the common room was free of the monstrosities. Here, the combined conscious minds of the ten crew members were still strong enough to banish the rampaging hallucinations.

The ten of them sat around the fountain, which seemed a shade less sparkling.

There were even rainclouds in the sky.

"I don't like it," said Bram Daker. "It's getting completely out of control."

"So we just have to stay in the garden, that's all," said Brunei. "The food's all here, and so is the Omnidrene. And they can't come here."

"Not yet," said Marsha.

They all shuddered.

"What went wrong?" asked Ingrid.

"Nothing," said Donner. "They didn't know what would happen when they sent us out, so we can't say they were wrong."

"Very comforting," croaked Lazar. "But can someone tell me why we can't control them any more?"

"Who knows?" said Brunei. "At least we can keep them out of here. That's-"

There was a snuffling at the wall. The head of something like a Tyrannosaurus Rex peered over the wall at them.

"Ugh!" said Lin Pey. "I think that's a new one."

The dragon's head appeared alongside the Tyrannosaur's.

"Well, at least there's a familiar face," t.i.ttered Linda.

"Very funny."

Marsha screamed. The huge black snake thrust its head through a portal.

And the flap of leathery wings could be heard. And the smell of sulphur.

"Come on! Come on!" shouted Brunei. "Let's get these things out of here!"

After five minutes of intense group concentration, the last of the horrors was banished.

"It was a lot harder this time," said Daker.

"There were more of them," said Donner.

"They're getting stronger and bolder."

"Maybe some day they'll break through, and...." Lin Pey let the sentence hang. Everyone supplied his own ending.

"Don't be ridiculous!" snapped Brunei. "They're not real. They can't kill us!"

"Maybe we should stop taking the Omnidrene?" suggested Vera, without very much conviction.

"At this point?" said Brunei. He shuddered. "If the garden disappeared, and we had nothing but the bare s.h.i.+p for the next fifteen and a half years, and we knew it, and at the same time knew that we had the Omnidrene to bring it back.... How long do you think we'd hold off?"

"You're right," said Vera.

"We just have to stick it out," said Brunei. "Just remember: They can't kill us. They aren't real."

"Yes," the crew whispered in a tiny, frail voice, "they aren't real...."

Seven months out: The garden was covered with a gloomy gray cloud layer. Even the "weather" was getting harder and harder to control.

The crew of stars.h.i.+p Number Thirteen huddled around the fountain, staring into the water, trying desperately to ignore the snufflings, flappings, wheezes and growls coming from outside the walls. But occasionally, a scaly head would raise itself above the wall, or a pterodactyl or bat would flap overhead, and there would be violent shudders.

"I still think we should stop taking the Omnidrene," said Vera Galindez.

"If we stopped taking it," asked Brunei, "which would disappear first, them ... or the garden?"