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rechargeable even on cloudy days; an assortment of concentrated vitamins, energizers and cellular nutrients, enough to sustain the Nomad’s strength no matter how insufficient his diet; and a carefully programmed dream explaining how he came to possess these marvels, a narrative designed to satisfy the boy’s heroic expectations as well as his curiosity.
    The experiment was working nicely. Soon, the Nomad would be back on his own in a world as alien to the Dreamer’s mechanical civilization as the colonies of protoplasmic bubbles floating in the ammonia-clouds obscuring the face of Jupiter. Wherever the Nomad went, whatever strange adventures he encountered, Par Sondak would be there too, exploring the unknown while sealed in the padded security of his egg-shaped studio.
    Buick opened his eyes. He lay at the edge of a water hole, across from where a chestnut stallion, hobbled front-leg-to-back, bent to touch noses with his reflection. The boy smiled, watching the horse drink. It was real after all. He hadn’t dreamed those weeks alone, or his adventures in the palace of the Lord Citizen. It had all really happened.
    Busy with the morning’s camp chores, Buick had ample occasion to relive his triumph in memory: he started his cooking fire with the light-that-never-dies and cut slabs of smoked meat with his fine new knife. Behind him, he heard the horse whisking away flies. He was not the same as other men. He had been tested and proved worthy by the All-Powerful.
    Until a month ago, a swaybacked donkey stolen during a raid on an encampment of the Buford Creek people was the finest mount Buick ever owned. Now, he rode a stallion bred by the hand of a Lord. The young Nomad remembered the final warning of his host: when you ride away from here, never return; forever shun the dwelling places of the Lord Citizens. It was strange how he understood every word even though the language the Select One spoke was completely unfamiliar to him. Wasn’t this another sign?
    Buick knew that life was forever changed; his fate altered the moment he stepped through the rain into the world of myth. What other warrior had ever battled a pack of three-headed dogs or been carried across a lake of fire in the talons of a giant hawk? And the victory feast in the rainbow palace of the Lord, how many clansmen could boast such an honor? The ordeal had been an initiation; the feast, with its attendant marvels and magic gifts, a celebration of his success. His was a special destiny.
    That night, Par Sondak violated the most cherished of his professional ethics: he interrupted the course of a Dream before visualization was complete. Often it took months while his shifting mental tides brought to the surface sufficient subconscious debris, the odd and often unrelated details which eventually would blend into a cohesive and continuous narrative. The Dreamer understood the evanescent nature of his art. If he missed a night before enough material accumulated for mixing, he ran the risk of having his fantasy unravel before it was successfully off the loom.
    It was a chance he was willing to take. The prospect of tuning in the implanted transmitter’s signal was too enticing for Sondak and when he placed the receptors on his head and stepped into the studio he issued new instructions for the computer. These were quite complex; he was planning a journey of over a month and needed to program a regimen of daily intravenous feeding and enzyme inoculation. The dream-table would have been more convenient, as it was portable and could have been moved alongside the clinic, but it was also designed to allow for easy interruption; the probe-receptors were set into a cushioned head-rest and merely the sound of a voice in the room or the melodic tone of a conference call-signal was enough to wake a dreamer. The studio was soundproof and temperature controlled. It sealed with the precision of an air lock. Par Sondak left orders that he was not to be disturbed.
    Buick