Wine of the Dreamers by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [MacDonald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780449141939
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1951-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

DR. SHARAN INLY SAT AT HER DESK, HER HANDS PRESSED against her eyes, her fingernails digging into her forehead just below the hair line. She wished with all her heart that she had become a stenographer, or a housewife, or a welder.

You could deal with humans, and be interested in them as humans even when they were cases duplicating those in the texts. Yet, as you treated them, you kept a tiny bit of yourself in reserve. It was self-protection. And then you would run into a case that would break your heart, because somehow you had gotten too involved with the individual as a person, not as a case.

"I hope you've got an explanation," Bard Lane said coldly as he slammed into her office.

"Shut the door and sit down, Dr. Lane," she said with a tired smile.

He sat down. His face had a drawn look. "Dammit, Sharan, my desk is piled high. Adamson needs help. The fool committee that wants to administer the death kiss to this whole project is waiting. I know you can bring anyone here at any time, but I think you might have checked first. Just a little consideration for the amount of work I———"

"How did you sleep last night?"

He stared at her, stood up with determination. "Fine, and I eat well, too. I even take walks. Want me to make a muscle for you?"

"Sit down, Dr. Lane!" she said crisply. "I'm doing my job. Please cooperate."

He sat down slowly, a look of fear in his eyes, growing fear. "What is this, Sharan? I guess I slept well enough. I felt tired this morning, though."

"What time did you get to bed?"

"A little before midnight I was up at seven."

"Thomas Bellinger, on the routine guard report, noted that you went into your office at ten minutes after two this morning."

Bard gasped. "The man's mad! No! Wait a minute. If somebody could plant a man who looks like me… Have you alerted all guards?"

She slowly shook her head. Her eyes were sad. "No, Bard. That won't work. You passed the full test series with flying colors just this week, but it still won't work. You noticed that Bess Reilly wasn't in your office this morning?"

He frowned. "She's sick today. She phoned from her quarters."

"She phoned from here, Bard. I asked her to. Bess was a little behind in her work. She went in early this morning. She went into your office and took yesterday's tape off the dictation machine and took it out to her desk to transcribe it. When she started to listen to it, she thought you were playing some sort of joke. She listened some more and it frightened her. She very properly brought it directly to me. I've been over it twice. Would you care to hear it?"

He said softly, "Dictation… a funny nightmare is coming back to me, Sharan. Silly thing, like most of them are. It seems I had something that I had to get down before it went out of my mind.

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