"The dreaming!" Vee Vee looked suddenly alert. "Of course. We must see the dreaming. Everyone wants to see the dreaming. We will go, won't we darling?" She hooked her hand into Johnson's elbow.
"Certainly," Johnson said. The decision was made on the spur of the moment. That there was danger in it, he did not doubt. But there might be something else. And he might be there.
"Oh. But very good. Ze great Unger, you will love him!" The headwaiter clutched the gold coins that Johnson extended, bowed himself out of sight.
"Say, I want to know more—" Johnson began. His words were drowned in a blast of trumpets. The band that had been playing went into sudden silence. Waves of perfume began to flow into the place. The perfumes were blended, but one aroma was prominent among them, the sweet, cloying, soul-stirring perfume of the Dreamer.
In the suddenly hushed place little sounds began to appear as Venusians and humans began to shift their feet and their bodies in anticipation of what was to happen.
The trumpets flared again.
On one side of the place, a big door began to swing slowly open. From beyond that slowly opening door came music, soft, muted strains that sounded like lutes from heaven.
Vee Vee, her hand on Johnson's elbow, rose. Johnson stood up with her. He got the surprise of his life as her fingers clenched, digging into his muscles. Pain shot through his arm, paralyzing it and almost paralyzing him. He knew instantly that she was using the Karmer nerve block paralysis on him. His left hand moved with lightning speed, the tips of his fingers striking savagely against her shoulder.
She gasped, her face whitened as pain shot through her in response to the thrust of his finger tips. Her hand that had been digging into his elbow lost its grip, dropped away and hung limp at her side. Grabbing it, she began to massage it.
"You—you—" Hot anger and shock were in her voice. "You're the first man I ever knew who could break the Karmer nerve paralysis."