"Your request for a visit says you've been having a dream which has recurred frequently. An unpleasant dream?"
"Ummmm, no; not in itself. But I think—"
"That somehow its implications are unpleasant for you—is that it? Yes? I see. May I have the tape, please?"
Wordless, Ker-jon handed him the little spool, waited while the psych-tech snapped it into place in a small projecting machine. After that, Ab'nath flicked a switch, and the lights in the little room dimmed.
In the center of the room stood a large transparent cube, as long in each of its three dimensions as a tall man. Within it now, lights pulsed, flashed, coalesced. Then they settled back, playing only at the corners, waiting.
Ker-jon held his breath. A tri-dimensional, full color replica of his dream filled the cube.
There was Ker-jon, but a hairless, three-ridged-mutant Ker-jon, and there in the crook of his left arm a slim blonde girl who could have been Cluny-ann, except that she too bore the marks of a mutant—different strain this time, with delicate silver scales covering parts of her fair body. Under a large bell-jar in the foreground, a compact black machine hummed shrilly, a light above its squat main body flashing on and off, on and off.
The queerest part of the dream was its background. Great concentric circles of color closed in on the bell-jar, broad bands of green, blue, red, orange, yellow. When first he'd had the dream, Ker-jon thought the circles emanated from the bell-jar, but clearly, this was not so. Rather, the bands of color surrounded it, almost as if they somehow attempted to crush it.
The dream Ker-jon did not think they could. He balled his right fist and struck down once, savagely, at the glass. It broke, but the machine hummed on and on. Ker-jon shrank back in horror, with a feeling of helplessness.
