I didn't really believe this, not then, but I couldn't afford to make a mistake, even if it were only some sort of intemperate test—as I was confident it was, with a sweet, throbbing fury against the man who would employ such a jagged broadsword for prying in his bureaucratic majesty.
"I've always thought," I said, "that it would be a good idea to show a prisoner what the modern penal system was all about by giving him a Dream in which he dreamed about Dreamland itself."
"Yes, indeed," Coleman concurred. Just that and no more.
I leaned intimately across my beautiful oak desk. "I've thought that projecting officials into the Dream and letting them talk with the prisoners might be a more effective form of investigation than mere observation."
"I should say so," Coleman remarked, and got up.
I had to get more out of him, some proof, some clue beyond the preposterous announcement he had made.
"I'll see you tomorrow at this time then, Walker." The councilman nodded curtly and turned to leave my office.
I held onto the sides of my desk to keep from diving over and teaching him to change his concept of humor.
The day was starting. If I got through it, giving a good show, I would be released from my Dream, he had said smugly.
But if this was a dream, did I want probation to reality?