that if I had to."
"Mixing species instincts is a very dangerous and difficult thing. We masters spend years learning how to control it. It never should have been thrust upon an apprentice. I should have stopped it, broke the Contact at once."
"Now, now," said Triieye placing one tentacle on Cairun's shell. "You must not blame yourself. We must move on. I'm sure she'd want us to." Triieye let a long stream of soothing yellow ink into the water. "Now," he said moving back, "what's our next step?"
Cairun pushed himself up higher in his shell and took a deep breath of water. "Tomorrow we're forming a circle to contact the Great Wings. Not only do they breathe air, but they have a very strong male-female identity. I think that was part of our problem, our female human wanted a female contact. I don't mind admitting that having an older, more experienced race making the next try will take a load off my mind. One death on this project has been one too many."
"It's there, it's right there in black and white" said Doctor Hallaway, tapping the EKG printout. All traces of Barbara's early boredom were gone. She was every bit as lost in the project as her partner. They were in Barbara's office, mostly because Barbara never felt comfortable in James's office. She felt that any place that clean wasn't for work, it was to show off for visitors. Her office on the other hand, always looked used and usable. Not that either of them had spent much of the last three days in their offices. Setting up the dream lab had been a hands-on job, but now they'd hit pay dirt.
"Seven students in all," said James "starting with Teresa Moore, and spreading from room to room like a chain reaction."
"Six women and one man" Barbara mused, looking over the data. "Do you suppose that has any significance, or is it just random chance?"
"Whichever," said James, "it'll show up in future cases and we can deal with it then.”
Barbara stopped reading and looked at James, "You think there will be more cases like this one?"
"I dearly hope so. If not, we are going to have the Devil's own time convincing anyone on this data alone."
He picked up a handful of hand-written dream descriptions. "They’re a lot of differenting details here. So much so, that it's hard to rule out coincidence where they match. We need a larger database."
Barbara sat back in her chair, "What about the dream content? Do you suppose that has any significance in itself?"
"No." James said shaking his head. "The whole team went swimming yesterday. Teresa herself swam over a mile in laps. It's no wonder she's seeing bug-eyed sea monsters in her dreams."
Edward Baker didn't usually dream of flying like a bird, but he knew that a lot of people did. He had a good idea this wasn't going to be a normal dream. He really hoped some of the other students were sharing it, since he had missed out on the last one.
Far below him, a great ocean stretched out as far as he could see, unbroken except for one small island group. They were green and gray gems on a field of blue velvet.
Edward suddenly realized he was not alone in the sky. It wasn't a bird beside him, it was a flying dinosaur. Feeling himself over, he realized that he was a being just like his new company. "I'm a flying pterodactyl!" No, that wasn't right, he corrected himself. Pterodactyls had only one tail, and he had three. Also, he thought they'd had scales, not soft fur like what was now covering his new body.
"Never were those ancient beasts anywhere near as large-brained as I am," said a voice inside Edward's head.
With a start, Edward realized that the thought had come from the being flying next to him. "You can talk?" He asked.
"You wouldn't be here if I could not," answered the flying being.
"Ok, I'll go for it. Why am I here?"
"To talk of course," answered Edward's host. "How else can we learn and share?"
Edward thought he could hear, or maybe the better word might be feel, some of the other students. A number of them, like Edward were life-long Science Fiction buffs. This was going to be fun. “Ok, let’s start with those islands down there. Are we near a continent now, and if so, how far out to sea are we?"
"Those are the tips of a great mountain range that runs from pole to pole. Those islands and thousands more like them are the only land that comes above the sea covering this world."
This answer surprised Edward, "But if you spend so much of your time in the water or in the air, how would you ever evolve the use of tools, let alone fire?"
"Our race uses few tools and fire not at all. Few races do."
This brought a strong reaction from over half the students. Disbelief was strongest. One even voiced the words "Far-fetched," and another, "Oh, come on, really!"
Other students challenged the first group which brought on more comments. This ignited an argument so multi-sided that all concentration was lost in a matter of seconds. Edward awoke thoroughly disgusted with his fellow students.
"Tools, they want tools!" Tyiieye waved a different household implement in each of his eight tentacles. "We've got to be the next to contact humans. No one can show them as many tools as we can."
"I don't know," said Cairun slowly. He smile for a second when he remember the beginning of the project when he had trouble getting Tyiieye interested. Now it seemed that he needed to slow his old teacher down. "Yes, we can show them tools," he took one of the house glow balls off its perch, "and we can show them light, but not fire. The rest of the team feels the same way. Fire is the biggest prize of all. Humans really feel you need to have control over it to be intelligent."
"Fire," muttered Tyiieye seating himself slowly. "Why fire? From everything I hear about it, it's horrible stuff."
"We're not sure. It may have something to do with showing courage. Races that have to deal with fire think it's pretty terrifying. One thing's for sure, the Downless Ones are the only race we know of that has regular interaction with it. We think they should be the next to try."
Tyiieye began setting down the tools he had been holding, "The Downless Ones, they're even younger than we are. Anyway, aren't they hopelessly afraid of this stuff, fire?"
"As I said," put in Cairun, "showing courage may have a lot to do with this. And as you said, the Downless Ones are the youngest race in our mind link. They're very eager to be helpful."
Tyiieye blew a nervous bubble of white ink before reaching for a sheet covered in writing and drawings. "Just in case the Downless Ones don't have any success, I've been working on a plan that might show that we have tools, as well as overcoming the water-to-air problem. I'd like you to look at these plans."
"The whole team! We got the whole team!" James was like a kid with his first blue ribbon at the science fair. His gaze darted back and forth along Barbara's desk, looking first at the EKG strips, then to the written reports, and back again. "I'd hoped we'd get more this time, but the whole team, wow!"
Barbara sat behind her desk slowly stirring her coffee, "More than just the whole team." James looked at her with a puzzled expression. She went on, "I was taking a nap myself during the first shift. I saw the whole thing."
"You too? Oh, this is great! Can you write it down? I should have gotten you to do it before you read the others. Then again, maybe having one done afterwards isn't such a bad idea. I hope I don't get the dreams, or we'll have no control subjects left at all."
Barbara wished that she could share James's unreserved enthusiasm, but a problem was bothering her, and bothering her a lot. "James, have you given any thought to the contents of these dreams?"
"What?" James looked up from his reading.
"I said; have you given any thought to the dreams' contents?"
"Well, no, not much anyway," answered James. "I suppose we could do a survey. This sounds like something out of a Science Fiction book. Maybe they've all read the same one."
Barbara shook her head. "I've already checked
. Only about half are Science Fiction readers, and James, I've read Science Fiction since the first grade. I've never read, or dreamed anything like this before."
"Barbara," James's voice was slow and cautious, "where are you leading to with this?"
Barbara looked into her coffee, stirring it slowly. "It wasn't like any other dream I've ever had, and a lot of the students said the same thing. James, what if it wasn't just the students and me?" Barbara stop herself, she didn't want to be the first to use the word alien. "I don't know, but what if there was something else?"
James reached over and took Barbara's coffee away. "Barbara, we are on the verge of being the first to prove that dreams can be linked between one sleeper and a other. Now, if we can demonstrate that link, we can get published in one of the very few, more open-minded credible scientific journals. We'll have to have a lot of proof and it'll be a fight, but it can be done. However, aliens trying to use our dreams to contact us? Saying 'Hi there Earthlings.' That'll get published in the National Enquirer, and you might as well apply for a job there, because it will be the only place that will have us until Hell freezes over."
James didn't often use profanity; when he did it meant he felt very strongly about something. What was worse, Barbara realized that he was right, dead right. "Can't we even talk about it between ourselves?"
"Sure," James said smiling with relief, and let Barbara reclaim her