Cascade Point

Perhaps a nudge would help. "Colonel," I called, "where are you?"

Stark turned at the sound of my voice as a burst of symbols, including several sets of latitude and longitude, went by too fast to catch completely. Two words— Krieger and Mairan—were visible for just a second. Between the two craters? Or was one name superfluous? I gambled and tried one more question. "Where is your iridium mine?"

"Forty, due east," he said, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity I didn't at all care for. I was just thinking about making a graceful exit when all hell broke loose.

"You're a Dreamsender!" Stark shouted as weapons appeared beside him and began blasting ineffectually at me. "How much do you know, damn you? Who else have you told?"

I should have stayed and tried to bluff my way out, to convince him I was only a dream image. But I panicked. I backed away and got out of there, knowing even as I did so that he would wake up with a vivid memory of the dream.

But at least I now had some idea where the iridium mine was. The name of Mairan Crater, some four hundred twenty kilometers north of Krieger, had showed up in both Larry's and Stark's dreams, in the latter case as an answer to a direct question. "Forty due east," Stark had said: forty kilometers east of Mairan? Larry had said the mine was "north," which would be approximately the right direction from Krieger D.

It was finally time, I decided, for me to blow the whistle. Stark's violent reaction, combined with Larry's earlier comment that "he can't get away with it," left me no further doubt that something illegal was going on at that mine. Admittedly, nothing I had so far could be considered hard evidence, but I should at least be able to spark an investigation by the Pentagon. And the sooner I started, the better.

Rolling over, I went back to sleep. An hour or so later I stepped through a misty barrier and came within sight of General Conrad Blaine himself.

His dream seemed to be a replay of some military crisis from his past. Shells and rockets whizzed about us, and he was dressed in full combat garb. I made my way toward him easily, but somewhere in the back of my mind something felt wrong, and for a moment I hesitated. Something in the scene around me? I couldn't tell. Nuts to it, though. I had a job to do.

"General Blaine? I'm Jefferson Morgan, a Dreamsender. I'm speaking to you from the moon with an urgent message."

Blaine's emotional tremor nearly knocked me off the map. I hung on and waited for it to subside before continuing. "There is something going on at your Krieger Crater Base that you should know about. Colonel Stark is up to something regarding a secret iridium mine near Mairan Crater—"

Blaine had been settling down, but the mention of Mairan set him off again. I waited for the emotional swirl to die down, but more than ever I felt something was wrong with this contact.

"Who are you?" Blaine asked. "How do you know this?"

"My name is Jefferson Morgan. I've been in contact with Captain Lawrence Holst, one of Stark's men at Krieger Base."

"What did he tell you?" Blaine took a step toward me, bouncing slightly.

Bouncing? Bouncing?

My thoughts froze in midsentence as the reason for my uneasiness hit me like a sledgehammer. I felt light—the same feeling I'd had when sending dreams to Larry, but not when I'd contacted Louise, even when I myself was here. It was a feeling that seemed to go with the recipient's location.

General Blaine was here on the moon.

I didn't even bother to say good-bye, but broke the contact just as fast as I could, and was pulling on my clothes almost before I was completely awake. Blaine on the moon and reacting violently to the name of Mairan could mean only one thing: He was in this thing with Stark, in it up to his neck. And speaking of necks, mine was now in serious trouble. I'd given Blaine both my name and Larry's and told him I was on the moon, and it would be trivial for him to track me down. I had to get out of here, and fast, or I would end up in the Krieger Base stockade. Or worse.

I needed a new plan of action, and one possibility began to take shape in my mind as I finished dressing. I would have to go to the mine now and get hard, photographic evidence of the plot. Once I had that, I could hole up somewhere and send dreams to every reporter and government official I could find. Lunar spacesuits were designed for long-term use, I knew, and with a Selene's supply of emergency oxygen tanks I could survive for a week or so away from civilization, long enough for someone to check on my story and blow the whistle on Stark and Blaine. I would have the photos to exchange for a government guarantee of safe

conduct back to Earth. It wasn't the best plan in the world, but it was all I could come up with. Whatever I did, I at least had the considerable advantage that no one could cut off my communication with the outside world.

Taking my camera and a few other things, I headed for the Hilton's lobby and rental counter, forcing myself to walk casually. This was no time to look like a fugitive. Blaine couldn't have gotten the word out this fast.

"I'd like to take a Selene out for a few hours," I said through dry lips.

The clerk looked at his list. "You're up pretty early, Mr. Holst," he commented. "You came in yesterday at 1930, and it's only 0400 now. We like our guests to rest at least twelve hours between trips outside, sir. It's safer that way."

"But I don't sleep much anyway," I told him, "and I can loaf around back on Earth. I came here to see the moon, not sit around a hotel."

He peered at me carefully. I don't know how I looked, but God knows I felt alert enough to drive that buggy all the way to Tycho. I was just wondering if I should offer him a bribe when he nodded. "All right, I guess it'll be okay. Suit fourteen, Selene five; sign here, please."

The usual procedure included a half-hour equipment check, but I had no intention of hanging around that long. I gave everything a cursory once-over, made sure oxygen, power, and ration indicators showed full, and was rolling eastward within fifteen minutes. Ten minutes later I was out of sight of the Prinz Crater colony. Pausing only long enough to pull the radio beacon out of the buggy, I turned north and headed for Mairan.

Four hundred twenty kilometers north of Krieger D, the map said. That put it about five hundred from my present position, and at forty kilometers per hour it would take over twelve hours to get there, not counting any cautious skulking I might have to do. The adrenaline-fed energy I had felt back at the hotel was ebbing fast, and my current lack of sleep was making itself felt throughout my entire body. For a moment I was tempted to find a convenient hiding place about halfway to Mairan where I could take a nap. But only for a moment. The sooner I got to the mine, the better chance I'd have of getting through whatever security Stark had set up there. Given enough time, they could button the place up so tight I'd never get near it. So I gritted my teeth, kept my foot on the accelerator, and kept myself awake by making a mental list of the newsmen I was going to send dreams to as soon as I was safely holed up.

—

My eyelids felt like lead by the time I completed my wide circle of the Mairan region and parked the Selene a few kilometers north of where I estimated the mine to be. The subterfuge was probably so much wasted effort—they were bound to be guarding the northern edge as well as they did the southern part—but somehow I felt safer approaching from this direction. I had spent a lot of my trip here trying to recall the latitude and longitude figures I'd seen in Stark's dream, figures that seemed to match with the rough idea I had of the mine's location. If I was right, I knew to within a kilometer or so where my target was. If not, it could be a very long search.