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PERCHANCE TO DREAM
By Richard Stockham
Illustrated by Kelly Freas
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of ScienceFiction May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _If you wish to escape, if you would go to faraway places,then go to sleep and dream. For sometimes that is the only way...._]
All along the line of machines, the men's hands and arms worked like thelegs of spiders spinning a web. They wound wire and hammered bolts, tiedknots and welded pieces of steel and fitted gears. They did not look ateach other or sing or whistle or talk or laugh.
And then--he made a mistake.
Instantly he stepped back and a trouble shooter moved into his place.The trouble shooter's hands flew over the controls.
The trouble shooter finished and the workman took his place. His armsmoved ceaselessly again.
He was a tall man, slim and wiry, his dress identical to that of theothers--grey coveralls that fit like tights.
Suddenly a red light flashed in his eyes and he began to tremble. Hetook two steps backward. The trouble shooter moved into the empty space.
The man stood for a moment, like a soldier at attention, turned andwalked smartly toward the mouth of a corridor.
The silence was like a motion picture with a dead sound track. There wasonly motion--and him walking down the line of machines where the handsreached out, working, working.
In the corridor now, he looked straight ahead, marching. The wallsglowed like water beneath a shallow sea.
He raised his arm, felt the door strike and the heel of his hand; feltit swing open; saw the desk suspended from the ceiling by luminous,silver chains.
A man with a massive, white-maned head and a pink, smiling face rosefrom behind the desk. His suit was like that of a general.
"Well, Twenty-three." The Superfather stared down at the dossier on hisdesk. "Two mistakes in three months. Too bad. Just when you were on yourway to the head of the machine room."
"I don't know what's the matter with me," said Twenty-three.
"I'm afraid we'll have to drop you back to a less responsible position."
"Of course."
The Superfather looked up quickly. "You accept this? No depression? Nothreat of suicide?... You _are_ in bad shape." He handed a packet ofcards to Twenty-three. "Put these in your dream machine tonight. Go toyour new job tomorrow."
Twenty-three stood motionless, staring over the other man's shoulder.
The Superfather sat down. "Tell me about the dreams you have when youdon't use the machine."
Twenty-three made a quick decision. He couldn't tell him he didn't usethe standard dream cards anymore. And he certainly couldn't tell aboutthe _other_ dream cards he'd been getting from the little man he'd meton the street. He'd simply answer the factual truth to the question thathad been asked.
"Well," he said, as though he were confessing a crime. "I dream I'mwalking in the city. It's dark. I feel like I've got to find something.I don't know what. But the feeling's very strong. All of a sudden Inotice the city's empty. There're just buildings and streets and a faintglow of light. And it comes to me that everybody's dead and buried. ThenI know what I'm looking for. I've got to find something alive or I'lldie too. So I start running around, in and out buildings, up and downstreets. But there's nothing. I'm breathing so hard I think my heart'sgoing to burst. Finally I fall down. I feel myself beginning to die. Itry to get up but I can't! I try to yell! I've got no voice! I'm soafraid, I can't stand it! Then I wake up."
The Superfather frowned. "Incredible. Several other cases like yourshave turned up in the last month. We're working on them. But yours isthe worst yet. You had such high capabilities. Your tests showed, whenyou first began to work, ten years ago, that you were capable of goingto the head of your production line. But you're not doing it. Also yournormal dreams should correspond to the ones on the cards. And theydon't.... Are you using the standard cards every other night?"
Twenty-three lied. "Yes."
"And the nights you don't use them, you have a dream like the one youjust told me."
"That's right."
"Incredible." The Superfather shook his head. "It just doesn't add up.As you know, you get the prescribed dreams every other night and that'ssupposed to condition your mind to dreaming those same dreams, byitself, on the nights you don't use the machine. The prescribed dreamsmerely show you the true way of life. And when you're on your own you'resupposed to follow that way of life whether you're asleep or awake.That's what the dream machine is for. I'm sure you're aware of allthis?"
"Yes," said Twenty-three. "Yes."
"Now we Superfathers _never_ have to use the dream machines. We're sofilled with the way of life they advocate and it's become such anintegral part of us, we simply _are_ what our prescribed dreams are. Andthe more successful a person is in the city, the less he has to use thedream machine. Now you have to use it every other night. That's entirelytoo much for a man of your potential. You realize this, of course.
"Oh I do," said Twenty-three shaking his head sadly.
"Well now," said the Superfather, "that means something's wrong. _Very_wrong." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "Your prescribed dreams show youworking faster and faster on the machines, going on month after monthyear after year, with one hundred percent accuracy. They show you happyin your work, driven by ambition on up to the end of your capabilities.They show you contented there to the end of your working life." Hepaused. "And you're _doing_ just the opposite ... I suppose your wifeis--concerned?"
Twenty-three nodded.
"After all, the marriage center assured her your index was right forher. _Her_ sleep cards were coordinated with yours. The normal dreams ofboth of you, without the machine, should be identical.... Yet you comeup with this horror--running through the city, alone, falling, dying."
Twenty-three's mouth twitched.
"Well." The Superfather stood. "If you can't adjust to normal, we'llsimply have to send you to the pre-frontal lobotomy men. You wouldn'twant that."
"Oh no!"
"Good!" The Superfather held out another packet of cards. "Use these_tomorrow_ night. It's a concentration pattern which should be denseenough to make you dream of being, well--perhaps even President, eh?"
"Yes." Twenty-three hesitated.
"Well?" said the Superfather.
"I'd--like to ask a question."
The Superfather nodded.
"What--what use," went on Twenty-three, "is all this--work being putto--that we do--along the machine lines--every day? We don't, seem toreally be _making_ anything. Just working."
The Superfather's eyes narrowed. "You're kept busy. You get paid. Youlive. The city is here. That's all. That's enough."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Twenty-three turned abruptly, marched to thedoor and stepped into the empty, silent corridor.
* * * * *
Twenty-three looked up at the glowing dome of the city that curved awayto the horizon. He wondered if there really was a white ball beyond itsometimes and tiny dots of light, set in blue black. And at other timesdid a ball of fire flame up there, giving light and heat and life? Andif there was this life and light up there, _why_ the great dome over thecity? _Why_ the factories and machine lines replacing it section aftersection, generation after generation? The slabs that the workers fusedtogether this year and the next and the next, pushing back this life andlight and heat. Why not let it pour down into the city and warm all thepe
ople? Why not go to the space out there and the depth and freedom? Whythis great shell that closed them away? For the sake of the Superfathersmaybe? And the Superfathers-plus? For the sake of the ones, like himselfmaybe who worked and built? For the sake of them, so they wouldn'tbecome dangerous maybe and tear the great wall down and rush out intowhatever was beyond? Why else?
But it could be all a farce. They could all be working in the great domebecause they didn't know what was beyond. Who could know if they'd neverbeen beyond?
And so they were held under the domes with the buildings and