pistolsnuggling in its shoulder holster, he knew the pursuit must continueimmediately.
He rode the elevator to the ground floor, and he felt his mind workingwith a clarity and a precision which he had seldom experienced before.This time he knew he would win.
Shrewdly, before leaving the building, Bennett looked out through theglass pane in the door first. He waited only a moment before he sawthe long gray sedan as he had expected. They would not trap him again.Ducking back, he walked rapidly toward a side exit.
Night had fallen by the time he reached the carnival building. He didnot ring the bell. Instead, he walked to the rear, climbed the stairsof a fire-escape, and softly opened the window of a bedroom.
He stepped inside just as softly and stood listening for breathing. Heheard none. This was probably too early for Lima to be in bed.
The bedroom door was open. Bennett could see a light coming fromanother part of the apartment--probably the living room. He paused tosteel himself for what he must do. The time had come when he wouldhave to be savagely ruthless.
He found Lima sitting on a couch, reading a book. He suspected thatshe still had some control over his mind and he had no intention ofletting her influence him. She must be killed before she could readhis intention.
"It didn't work." Bennett spoke just loudly enough to startle Limainto raising her head.
As she looked up, he shot her squarely between the eyes.
In an agony of frustration, Bennett saw the flesh of her foreheadremain clear and undisturbed. He knew he could not miss at this range,yet she was unhurt. He lowered his sights and shot at the white neckbeneath the fair head. She still sat there, returning his gaze,unperturbed, unmarked by the bullets.
He pumped the four remaining bullets into her body. The only part ofher that moved was her lips.
"It's no use, Leroy," she said. "Haven't you guessed? You are still inyour dream. You can't kill me there."
Suddenly the implication struck him with its awful simplicity.
"Good God!" His voice rose. "Do you mean I've never been out of mydream?" He hesitated while the thought sank in. "My remembrance ofcoming out of it was only part of the dream itself," he murmured."That was why you were able to turn time backward at will."
A cold calmness returned to him.
"Tell me," he said, "am I still in the dream?"
"Yes," Lima replied.
"Then I demand that you free me now!"
"As you wish," Lima said sadly. "And may God help you."
Bennett wrenched his body from the couch on which it lay and struggledto his feet. Though the dream had seemed real enough, he could lookback on it now and see it as any other dream.
He breathed easier, and then stopped abruptly when he heard a voicebehind him say, "You are still a dead man!"
Bennett whirled and found himself facing Tournay. And Tournay held apistol aimed at his heart.
Bennett turned desperately back to Lima. His lips formed her name, butthe sound died almost before it was uttered. This time, he saw, shewould not help him. Her features had hardened and no mercy orcompassion registered on them.
"There is no escape," she said.
A fleeting thought went through his mind of springing at Tournay andtrying to reach him before the gun could be fired. But one glance atTournay's face made him realize how futile--and fatal--that would be.
Tournay's finger tightened on the trigger of his gun and Bennettthought ahead in despair to what was to come. One thing he knew: Hedid not want to die! Was there no way out?
The answer came like a cry of relief. There was a way--Thone! The cityof his enigma. Tournay and Lima could not harm him there.
* * * * *
For just an instant, Bennett's vision blurred. Time paused, and thenext moment he knew he had returned to Thone. The sounds of the aliencity floated up to him and he stirred.
He grasped the sides of his coffinlike bed with fingers that had losttheir sense of touch. He pulled himself up to a sitting position andlooked about him. On one side stood Lima, though now her features werenot those of the implacable, merciless mystic, but rather those of awoman in love.
She smiled happily and said, "At last you have returned."
Bennett strove to move his tongue and lips to ask questions, but theyrefused, as though numbed by long inaction. He turned to his otherside and gazed questioningly at the replica of Tournay who stoodthere.
Tournay's image spoke. "We had quite a time bringing you back, Sire.But now it has been accomplished--for good."
Striving to move his throat muscles, Bennett finally forced a sound,and then words, through his lips.
"Tell me," he pleaded. "Who are you? And, more important, who am I?"
He turned to Lima for an answer, realizing that now she would help himif anyone would.
"Doctor Tournay will explain it to you," Lima replied, indicating thedark man.
Imploringly, Bennett turned back to face Tournay.
"I see that very little of your memory has returned yet," Tournaysaid. "In a short while, everything--all your past--will come back toyou. Until then, perhaps I had better explain to you who you are. Mywords will help trigger your returning memory, and speed up theprocess."
"Please do," Bennett begged.
"You are Benn Ett, _Le Roy_ of the city-state of Thone, in the year4526 A. D. Six months ago, the strain of governing the city began toundermine your health. Acting under my advice, you decided to take asomno-rest cure.
"This rest cure," the doctor continued, "is quite standard practice inour time. We had a little difficulty bringing you out of it at the endof six months. Evidently your somno-existence must have been verypleasant."
"Do you mean that the existence I remember was merely an inducedfigment of my imagination?"
"Yes. You see, the best rest that can be given a mind is to give itnot sleep, but pleasant work. Therefore, under my manipulation, youwere given a pseudo-existence in a past era of history. You were ledto conceive yourself as occupying a position, which, after closestudy, I deduced would be the most suitable and relaxing for you."
"But if that is true, why did my dream have to end so unpleasantly--Imight say, so nearly fatally?" Bennett demanded.
"The more successful I am in choosing a pleasant existence for apatient in the somno, the more difficult it is to bring him out ofit," the doctor replied. "Your unconscious mind, realizing how happyyou were in your simulated existence, and how it would have to returnto the rigor and stress which unnerved it before, fought with all itsstrength to remain where the somno had placed it.
"The usual practice in bringing a patient back to reality is for thedoctor to enter the dream and convince him, by whatever means may benecessary, to return. Sometimes, however, the patient is so firmlytied to his somno-existence that drastic measures must be used. Thisis usually done by means of making the somno-existence soanxiety-producing that the patient is glad to return.
"Your particular release was one of the most difficult that I haveever encountered. In fact, I was unable to bring you back myself, andasked your wife, Lima, to enter the somno with me and help force youto return."
Bits of recollection, which had been edging into Bennett's memory,burst through in full force, and he remembered. It was true. He _was_Benn Ett, _Le Roy_ of the city-state of Thone.
He turned to Lima and, as he read the glad light in her eyes, he knewthat she had witnessed the return of his complete memory.
"Welcome home," she said.
--CHARLES V. DE VET
* * * * *
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