Not all of the people who could afford private vaults and planned decades of Dreams went along with the scheme, of course. Some packed up as many of their possessions as they could carry and left the city. On foot or in the few vehicles still running, they headed for the south in search of new land and a chance to find a new and better city. These were the bravest of the Purans, but there were not many of them. Even those who did not spend most of their time in Dreams had long since become so completely urbanized that they were like fish out of water in the country beyond. That explained the abandoned villas and also the reaction of the woman who, had preferred suicide to flight across the bridge and out of the city.
Others among the wealthy tried to join the Wakers. Many of them were killed; the hatred of Wakers for Dreamers was intense. But some had survived, and according to what Narlena had heard, their descendants were often among the leaders of the Wakers. Blade wondered if that was the explanation behind the discipline and skill of the Wakers he had seen in action on the bridge.
However, tens of thousands of Purans had elected to lock themselves in their Dream vaults with the automatic timing devices. set to Wake them at intervals of twenty years until the chaos in Pura had died. They had entered their Dream worlds, confident that in one or at most two Dream cycles the city would be theirs again.
That had been nearly a century and five Dream cycles ago. Each time the Dreamers wandered, half-dazed, out of their vaults to see what had become of Pura, they found it still overrun by bands of Wakers. Worse, those gangs preyed on the Dreamers as viciously as ever, killing some, enslaving others, looting any vault they found open. Over the century, many thousands of Dreamers had been killed or enslaved. Each time their Waking came, there were fewer of them, and those bold enough to go out onto the surface were in greater danger than before. Eventually, Narlena said, swallowing, her face set hard and white as she spoke, the marconite crystals in the vaults would be exhausted and the life-support systems would fail. Then the Dreamers would have to awake to face the Wakers, or if they were lucky, die in their sleep.
«What is marconite?» Blade asked Darlena. That was something she hadn't mentioned before, but she made it sound vital to the survival of the Dreamers and their vaults.
«Your people do not have it?»
«Would I ask you if we did? What is it? You say that it comes in crystals?»
Instead of answering directly, she went over to one wall and opened a small orange panel. Behind the panel lay a small enamel-walled niche, lit by a bluish-tinged lamp that went on automatically as Narlena opened the panel. Blade could see that most of the niche was filled with four milky-white cylindrical capsules, about the size of beer bottles and made of something that looked like plastic with crystalline striations running through it. Each capsule stood on a metal base, and from the upper end of each one, two thick black wires ran back into the wall. Narlena pointed at the capsules and said, «That is the marconite for my vault. Each of the vaults started out with forty capsules. I change them each time I Wake.»
Blade stared. He could not have kept his excitement concealed if he had wanted to. Those white crystalline capsules were the sole power source for everything in this vault for a period of twenty years! A method of energy storage-or perhaps energy generation? — that made the most far-out experimental notions in Home Dimension look like kindergarten toys. He recalled the submarine that he and Annie had seen surfacing in the channel. With half a dozen capsules of marconite crystals wired to its electric motors, it could achieve the same endurance as an atomic submarine at a fraction of the cost, space, and weight. But that was only the beginning of the possibilities that would be open to England if he could bring back a sample of marconite-and if England's scientists could find the secret of the marconite and a way of duplicating it. Energy supply was the stumbling block that had crushed all hopes of hurling English technology decades ahead to Dimension X technology. Sooner or later, however, one of Blade's samples would yield its secrets, and then Project Dimension X would have repaid its cost a hundred times over.
But Home Dimension's problems were in Home Dimension, and Blade was here in Narlena's Dream vault in a basement in Pura. He knew that if he did not want to face the alternatives of either fleeing into the countryside or living a hunted existence in the city, constantly on the watch for Waker bands, he was going to have to find more allies among the Dreamers. There would certainly be a good many of them up and around, and more than usual this year, since a Dream cycle was ending. But could he get to them before the Wakers picked them off or they recoiled in horror from the spectacle of their ravaged city and retreated to their vaults? He would need Narlena's help for that. And how could he explain to this woman, who apparently saw the goal of life as longer and better Dreams, that her way of life was bringing her and her city to destruction? She-and hopefully others-recognized that there was danger. But did any of them recognize how great it was? If the Wakers ever began a systematic campaign to sweep up the Dreamers as fast as they crept out of their vaults, the Dreamers would be decimated long before the marconite ran out. Barbarism would plague Para for centuries to come, until the Wakers painfully pieced together and applied all the knowledge that had died with the Dreamers.
Blade was a hard, practical man of action, not a professional or even an amateur do-gooder. But ever since his stay in Royth and his efforts to save it from the pirates, he had been particularly aware of how much he might do for and learn from the people he traveled among. He was only one man, but he was an intelligent and well-trained one. More often than not he could see a people's crisis, from an angle that they themselves had not considered. Often he had some skill that they needed. So now he looked for occasions to help, as well as for things to learn or take.
Of course, it was inevitable that he would become deeply involved in whatever crisis was facing his hosts-and in the battle, murder, sudden death, and court intrigues that went along with them. And he had to watch his step not only to stay alive but also to make sure that he was really aiding the «better» side, if not a «good» one. This meant developing an ability to quickly size up crises affecting a whole society. Blade occasionally found ironic amusement in the fact that he seemed to have been turned by circumstances into an amateur sociologist. But he had always been willing to develop any skill that might help him in his work, however peculiar that skill might seem. He was a professional, had always been one, would always be one. Now he was going to apply those professional skills to the problem of awakening the Dreamers of Pura and permanently putting to sleep as many Wakers as possible. The situation in Pura, however, did not require that much in the way of analysis. A one-eyed man could have reached the same conclusions as Blade. The problem was that all the Purans seemed to be blind.
He turned to Narlena, ready to fire a few pointed questions at her, but found her wriggling toward him across the fur. Then she was on his lap, her arms going around his neck and her lips coming up to meet his. He bent to embrace her and support her. There would be time enough later for all the arguments he would need to convince her to help him. He wondered how many he would have to use.