Free Wine of the Dreamers by John D. MacDonald Page B

smiled, “Good evening, Dr. Lane.”
    “Good evening. Dr. Inly, please. Would you connect the call in the booth?”
    He shut himself in. Her voice was sleepy. “Hello, Bard.”
    “Did I wake you up?”
    “Ten seconds later and you would have. What is it, Bard?”
    He glanced through the booth door. The girl had returned to her magazine. “Sharan, would you please get dressed and come down. I must talk to you.”
    “You sound … upset, Bard. I’ll be down in five minutes.”
    She was better than her word. He was grateful for her promptness. She came out beside him, asking no questions, letting him choose time and place. He led her over to the porch of the club. It was after hours and the chairs had been stacked on the tables. He set two of them on their legs. A dog howled in the hills. Over near the labor barracks someone laughed loudly.
    “I want to consult you as a patient, Sharan.”
    “Of course. Who are you worried about?”
    “Me.”
    “That sounds … absurd. Go ahead.”
    He made his voice flat, emotionless. “Tonight I had dinner with Major Leeber. I went back to my office to finish up some of the paperwork. It took a bit longer than I expected. When I finished, I was tired. I turned out the light and sat there in the dark for a few moments, waiting for enough energy to get up and go back to my quarters. I turned my chair and looked out the window. Enough moonlight came through the screen so that I could just make out the shape of the Beatty One.
    “Suddenly, and without any warning, I felt a … nudge at my mind. That’s the only way I can describe it. A nudge, and then a faint, persistent pushing. I tried to resist it, but its strength increased. There was a certain horrid… confidence about it. An utterly alien pressure, Sharan. A calm pressure. Have you ever fainted?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you remember the way you tried to fight off the blackness, and it seemed to grow stronger? It was like that. I sat absolutely still, and even as I fought against it, one part of my mind was trying to find a reason for it. Tension, overwork, fear of failure. I used every device I could think of. I tried to focus my mind on nothing except the look of the corner of the screen. I dug my fingers into the chair arm and tried to focus on the pain. The thing in my mind increased the pressure and I had the feeling that it was fitting itself to my mind, turning as it entered, so as to find the easiest means of entrance. I lost the ability to control my own body. I could no longer dig at the chair arm with my fingers. I cannot describe how frightening that was. I have always felt … completely in control of myself, Sharan. Maybe I’ve been too confident. Possibly even contemptuous of the aberrations of others.
    “My eyes were still focused at short range on the corner of the screen. My head lifted a bit and, without willing it, I found myself staring out at the Beatty One, trying to make out its outlines. It was in my mind, strongly, that I was seeing the ship for the first time. I was sensing the reaction of the thing that had entered my mind. The thing was perplexed, awed, wondrous. Sharan, in that state, I could have been forced to do … anything. Destroy the ship. Kill myself. My will and my desires would have had no part in action I might have undertaken.”
    As she touched his arm, and said softly, “Easy, mister,” he realized that his voice had climbed into a higher register, threatening shrillness.
    He took a deep breath. “Tell me, is there such a thing as a waking nightmare?”
    “There are delusions, fantasies of the mind.”
    “I felt … possessed. There, I’ve said it. The thing in my mind seemed to be trying to tell me that it was not inimical, that it wished no harm. When the pressure reached its strongest point, the moonlight faded away. I lookedinto blackness and I felt that all my thoughts and memories were being … handled. Fingered, picked at.
    “And now, Sharan, comes the