Vee Vee's fingers dug deeper into Johnson's arm. "How—"
"Shhh. Nobody knows."
No human knew the answer to that trick. Unless perhaps Martin—
Unger bowed. A little ripple of something that was not quite sound passed through the audience. Unger bowed again. He stretched himself flat on the mat, adjusted the rest to support his head, and apparently went to sleep. Johnson saw the Dreamer's eyes close, watched the chest take on the even, regular rhythm of sleep.
The music changed, a slow dreamy tempo crept into it. Vee Vee's fingers dug at Johnson's arm as if they were trying to dig under his hide for protection. She was shivering. He reached for her hand, patted it. She drew closer to him.
A few minutes earlier, she had been a very certain young woman, able to take care of herself, and handle anyone around her. Now she was suddenly uncertain, suddenly scared. In the Room of the Dreaming, she had suddenly become a frightened child looking for protection.
"Haven't you ever seen this before?" he whispered.
"N—o." She shivered again. "Oh, Johnny...."
Under the circle of light pouring down from the ceiling, the Dreamer lay motionless. Johnson found himself with the tendency to hold his breath. He was waiting, waiting, waiting—for what? The whole situation was senseless, silly, but under its apparent lack of coherence, he sensed a pattern. Perhaps the path to the far-off stars passed this way, through such scented and musical and impossible places as these Rooms of the Dreamers. Certainly Martin thought so. And Johnson himself was not prepared to disagree.
Around him, he saw that the Venusians were already going ... going ... going.... Some of them were already gone. This was an old experience to them. They went rapidly. Humans went more slowly.