Padric sat tailor-fashion on his bed and drummed his fingers thoughtfully on one thigh. His heart had slowed, but a certain tension remained in his gut. The Dream was becoming more and more dangerous. He would have to arrange a meeting with Dr. Say, and quickly.
The bedroom door opened and a large spider-like being scuttled in. A silver tray was balanced expertly on its back, and the delicious smells of sweet rolls and coffee filled the dome. Padric shivered with Dream cold again and all but snatched the coffee mug off the tray. He sipped the bitter warmth gratefully. The spider, meanwhile, set the tray on the nightstand, then stepped back and waved its forward legs and antennae. Padric, adept at the sign language, didn’t need to activate the translator.
“Will you require anything more, sir?” Chipk, the spider, was asking. He was a Kepaar whose had lost status on his homeworld. Padric had hired him, though Chipk had the unnerving habit of referring to it as “buying my soul.”
“The newest reports about the Dream, please,” Padric replied in his own language. He couldn’t speak Kepaarin-not without multi-jointed legs-but Chipk knew Padric’s language perfectly well. It was an equitable arrangement.
“The news has already been downloaded into the room, sir,” Chipk said, and withdrew.
Padric sipped from the mug again. Although coffee was originally a human discovery, it had taken the ministrations of more evolved races to produce the best results, and Padric’s staff always ordered beans that had never touched human hands or soil.
“Meth-pa,” he said, “news. Text format.”
A holographic veiwscreen obediently appeared in front of him and words scrolled down it. There were several stories about Silent who had been caught in strange accidents or fought terrible monsters. Per Grill, a Silent from Bell Star Station, had nearly been swallowed by a giant worm. A pair of Silent involved in a delicate stock market transaction had been hit by a tornado. They described the whirlwind as “screaming at us.”
Nileeja Vo was dead.
Padric gasped and hurriedly re-read the article. Nileeja Vo was-had been-a field recruiter for Dreamers, Inc. Her husbands had found her dead on her couch, a look of terror on her face. According to the newspaper, she had finished a mail transfer within the Dream, and the other Silent, the one receiving the information, had left the Dream just fine. Moments later, something had killed her Dream form, and her body had quickly followed.
Padric put a bony hand over his mouth as he read. A small bit of sorrow clotted his throat. He had met Nileeja Vo at the same time he had met KellReech. Padric remembered squatting in the filthy camp barrack when a strange being entered, flanked by two guards. The being was short and scaly, with long graceful fingers. It moved through the room, touching each inmate and moving on without speaking. Padric watched in wary fascination until the creature came to him. When its fingers brushed his bare shoulder, a jolt flashed down his spine.
“This one,” the being said.
The guards took Padric by the upper arms and full-blown terror burst upon him. He struggled and fought until one of the guards cracked him across the head with a baton. The world went dark.
When he awoke with an ache in his head and nausea in his stomach, the short creature was standing next to him. It occurred to Padric that he was lying on a bed, a soft one. The creature pressed something against his arm. There was a soft thump, and the headache and nausea vanished.
“Who are you?” Padric asked.
The creature smiled with its wide mouth. “My name is KellReech,” it said.
The door opened, and another being walked in. This one was over two meters tall and willowy with enormous black eyes, a shock of wild white hair, and rough brown skin. It carried a food tray. An appetizing smell filled the room and Padric’s mouth watered. He sat up and saw that he was dressed in clean pajamas. His body also felt clean, though he hadn’t bathed in months. The willowy creature set the tray in Padric’s lap. He instantly shoveled food into his mouth, not even stopping to examine or taste it.
“This is my colleague Nileeja Vo,” KellReech said. “And we represent Dreamers, Inc.”
While Padric bolted his food, KellReech explained further. New Prague, Padric’s planet, had been invaded and taken over by the One World Regime without any formal declaration of war. New Prague was now an official protectorate of the Regime, and random segments of its population were alternately enslaved or put into the work camps. That much Padric knew, though he didn’t stop eating long enough to say so.
KellReech went on to explain that Dreamers, Inc. was a separate entity, a private corporation that provided Dream communication at competitive prices to anyone who had the means to pay for it. Dreamers, Inc. was always on the lookout for more Silent, and they had bribed the regeant of the camp for the privilege of combing the inmates for any Silent the Regime might have missed. They had found Padric.
Padric took a long pull from a large glass of milk, though he listened carefully to every word. There would be a catch somewhere, he was certain of it. In the camps, no one did anything for free.
Nileeja sat on the foot of Padric’s bed, and he spared enough attention to see what his surroundings were. He was in a small room with metal walls and a carpeted floor. A ship? The room contained only his bed, an endtable, and a single chair. Nileeja smelled faintly like crushed grass.
“You to be free now, Padric,” Nileeja said in a soft, soothing voice. “This mean you to have choices. You to tell us you to want walk away right now, and we to take you wherever you want to go. No obligation. Or you to join Dreamers, Inc.”
She went on to explain that Dreamers, Inc. would train Padric to use his Silence at their extensive and highly-advanced facility, though not for free. Upon completion of his training, he could either work for Dreamers, Inc. with living costs paid and salary going to pay off debts, or he could strike out on his own and give a portion of his earnings to Dreamers, Inc. until the debt was paid.
Padric sucked crumbs off his fingertips and promptly chose to join. What other choice did he have? KellReech and Nileeja Vo nodded their approval and told him to sleep.
Padric later learned there were no other humans aboard the Quiet Dreamer, though there were a dozen other aliens, all different, all Silent. The Dreamer was on a long-term recruiting mission and wouldn’t return to headquarters for several months. During that time, it became obvious that something had to be done about Padric. He suffered terrible nightmares. He stole from the crew and new recruits. He told lies, and once he even set fire to his mattress. Eventually, KellReech started meeting with him on a daily basis to talk. Padric later learned that KellReech had been reading books on human psychology, though she admitted to Nileeja that some of it was hard to grasp. Still, she did her best.
“Of course,” KellReech said during one session. “You are angry. You are in pain from what your fellow humans did to you. You hate them for it, and you hate yourself.”
At first, Padric didn’t want to talk to her at all, and KellReech wisely did not threaten to withdraw Dreamers, Inc.’s offer if he didn’t behave. Eventually, after much coaxing, Padric did talk to her. He told her about the camps and the guards, talked about how he had stolen from other inmates and informed on some of them to get better treatment for himself.
“You feel guilty about what you did,” KellReech said. “But the urge to survive is a strong instinct among humans. You did what you had to do, and it’s normal to feel guilt and hatred. It’s normal to hate yourself and other humans.”
When the ship reached the moon that served as the headquarters for Dreamers, Inc., Padric’s training began. Once he finished, Padric elected to go freelance and send a portion of his wages back to Dreamers to pay off the debts and interest incurred by his rescue and training, but he still retained several contacts with the company, including KellReech. He had fallen out of touch with Nileeja Vo, however, and hadn’t laid eyes on her in over thirty years.
Now she was dead.
Sorrow washed over Padric. He sat silent for a moment, then ordered the computer to make a sizeable donation in her name to whatever charity Nileeja’s family might deem appropriate. The computer would route the order to Padric’s own team of Silent, who would go into the Dream, contact his bank-literally Padric’s bank-and authorize them to transfer the funds to a bank on Nileeja’s world. The Silent who worked for Padric’s bank would contact the Silent who worked for the bank on Nileeja’s world, and they would accept the transfer. Padric’s bank would deduct the amount of money from his account, and the other bank would add the amount to theirs. Transaction completed.
Padric, meanwhile, still on his bed, swallowed his sorrow a bit more easily that he thought he should. On the
