Death is a Dream

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Britain, years after the Debacle, and a new London has risen phoenix-like from near the ashes. Though Londoners have retained their physical purity through the ruthless destruction of generations of mutants, man is no longer the same, and society crueller. Cynicism and a whole-hearted recognition of the absolute power of money has replaced humanism, and a belief in reincarnation has replaced religion and the old moral code of 'doing unto others . . .' The individual can exist, has a right to exist, only if he is selfish. Death is a Dream is the story of three survivors from the twentieth century who awake from suspended animation in The Cradle to find themselves unemployable, and unfit to live by virtue of their commitments to out-dated ideals. As well as being an investigation of the form society may take after an atomic war, it is, by association, an indictment of society as it is now.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 320

Sample

TOG HALSEN, scavenger extraordinary, glowered as he stared into his immediate future. Everyone knew that he was one of the best in the business but, unless he had a break and soon, that reputation wouldn’t last. He had failed twice running. If he failed again it would be hard to find backers, good workers, decent equipment and official assistance. He had seen it happen to others. He would drop to scraping a living on a contingent basis, trying to cut corners and dodge safety factors.

And that, he thought grimly, was the beginning of the end.

Tiredly the scavenger stretched and looked at the maps on his field desk. Damn all retros anyway. He had the growing conviction that he had been conned into something and he didn’t like it. Not when his own neck was on the metaphorical block of financial execution.

Irritably he jerked to his feet and crossed the uneven ground of the camp. The thin column of smoke from the met-fire rose to one side but he ignored it. He timed his expeditions well and there was no immediate danger from southern winds – not unless nature had decided to change the habits of centuries. But the fire, the attendant and the fee for radioed weather reports were all added expenses. His scowl deepened as he approached the diggings.

‘Where’s Saul?’

‘On the job.’ A square man with a scarred face jerked his thumb towards a crumpled opening in a mound of vegetation-shrouded debris. Fresh-turned earth lay to either side and the white-clad figure of the Life Institute operator was busy with his culture plates.

‘How long?’ Tog didn’t look at the lifeman. Sometimes official approval of a thing cost more than it was worth but you never knew when you might need a doctor.

‘He’s been gone about thirty minutes.’ The scarred man glanced at the opening. He was just going to take a quick preliminary.’ He grunted as a figure filled the opening. Here he comes now.’

Saul was a big man, bigger by reason of the padded body armour and protective helmet he wore. He pulled the respirator from his mouth, the glove from his right hand and wiped the back of it across his mouth. He looked dusty, tired and irritated. He shook his head at Tog’s expression.

‘No luck. It looks like it was a warehouse or a factory of some kind. The basement is holding up but I wouldn’t like to gamble for how long. The upper structure has collapsed and only a few beams are supporting the weight.’

‘Anything –’

‘No.’ Saul didn’t wait for Tog to ask the inevitable question. ‘Some junk machinery, boilers for heating. I think. Some packing cases, a little wire, a few heaps of rust. Some bones too,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Not many – the rats could have been busy or not many made it in time. Not that it did them any good.’ He shrugged at the scavenger’s expression. ‘Sorry, Tog, but there isn’t a thing in there worth the trouble of digging out.’

‘Damn!’ Tog sensed the disappointment of his men and it added to his own. ‘Is the structure what we’re looking for?’

‘No.’ Saul was emphatic. ‘The walls are concrete, the beams metal. The thing can’t be more than four hundred years old.’

‘No hewn stone? No overbuilding or incorporating of an older structure?’

‘No.’ Saul eased the helmet from his head. His hair was damp with perspiration. He didn’t look at the scavenger. ‘And nothing below, either. The floor is solid – I tested it with sonar. It’s another bust, Tog.’

Another bust, two flopped expeditions and now this – still nothing after the sixth attempt despite the most careful planning and preliminary investigation. Tog looked down at his hands – they were clenched into fists at his sides. Deliberately he opened them, spreading and flexing the fingers, taking deep breaths to quell his anger.

‘All right,’ he decided. ‘We’ll have a conference. Get cleaned up and report to my tent. You,’ he snapped to the lifeman. ‘Find that retro and report to me in an hour.’ He was being impolite but things were too serious for him to worry about trifles. ‘The rest of you scatter and see what you can find. Move!’

The retro was – arrogant. He came into the tent, tall, thin, emaciated with long hours of fasting and prayer, deep-set eyes in his tonsured skull burning with a fanatical light. Despite the chill of early spring open sandals framed dirty feet. He was naked beneath his habit. A massive crucifix hung from a leather belt. A rosary of large wooden beads hung from his hands.

Tog gestured towards a chair.

‘Sit down, Elkan,’ he said. ‘You’ve –’

‘My name is not Elkan.’ His voice was harsh and acrid. I am Brother Ambrose of the Most Holy Order of –’

‘All right,’ snapped Tog. ‘I know who you are.’

‘He felt his anger rising and fought for control. Damn these retros! It was one thing to have memories, he had them himself, but to live literally in a previous existence was something he couldn’t understand. And, from the look of Elkan, it hadn’t been such a wonderful time. Nothing but fasting and prayer. He shook his head. Such thoughts were getting him nowhere.

‘You have failed,’ said Brother Ambrose. His voice, his eyes, were scornful. ‘Six times you have tried and each time the hand of Satan has misguided your efforts. Once again I exhort you to—’

‘Satan had nothing to do with it,’ snapped Tog bitterly. ‘Not unless you are he. I followed your guidance and drew a bust. Now it’s time for us to talk.’

‘Deeds, not words are needed here!’ The retro lifted his rosary as if to break into another of his interminable diatribes. Tog slammed his hand on his desk.

‘Shut up! If you start preaching at me again I’ll shove that thing down your gullet! Now sit down and listen!’

His hands were clenched again and he felt the tension of anger. It didn’t help to know that the rage stemmed from fear. Fear of failure and what failure would mean. But rage was useless here – anger had never yet been an aid to the finding of loot.

‘Now, Brother Ambrose,’ he said quietly when the retrophile was seated. ‘You lived in the first part of the sixteenth century and were a monk at the monastery attached to the abbey of Waltham. Is that correct?’

‘It is.’

‘Please continue.’

Brother Ambrose looked surprised. He glanced at the lifeman seated at his side, looked at the dour face of Saul and let his eyes rest on Tog’s grim features. For a moment the scavenger thought he was going to protest then he swallowed and shrugged.

‘Life at the monastery was very – satisfying. It – but never mind that, you would not be interested. Sufficient to say that Waltham Abbey was not without those who sought to aid Mother Church. Many generous benefactors deeded gifts of land and money. There were other gifts of gold and precious stones – but enough of that. The hand of Satan made itself manifest in the antichrist Henry the Eighth. In 1539 came the general dissolution of the monasteries. Father Abbot took obvious precautions.’

‘You are certain as to that?’

‘Of course. I was there. I and two other brothers were entrusted with the task of safeguarding much of the altar furniture together with other precious objects. We buried them deep beneath the walls of the chapter house, sealing them with stone and mortar, piling earth so as to hide what we had done. Then we waited with prayer and fasting for the coming of the hordes of Satan who –’

‘Never mind that,’ said Tog hastily. ‘We know what happened then.’ He glanced at the lifeman. ‘Truth?’

‘Without question. You have our sworn attestation as to that.’

The scavenger nodded. Without it he wouldn’t have given this project a second thought. The retro was genuine enough, the Life Institute had made sure of that, but one man’s memory was a risky thing on which to chance the future.

Especially when that memory was stretched over eight hundred years.

With death and rebirth in between.

‘The loot,’ he said. ‘The treasure. Tell me about it again.’

‘There is a monstrance,’ said the retro dreamily. ‘Of pure gold heavier than a man can easily lift, studded with three hundred and sixty-five precious gems. A crucifix of silver edged with gold and inlaid with costly stones. Two incense boats and many plates of gold and silver. There is a wealth of chains and brooches – offerings from the faithful. There – it took many hours for the three of us to carry the treasure to where we buried it.’

‘And?’

‘There is a reliquary containing a fragment of bone from the blessed St Stephen. That is my reward for leading you to the treasure.’

‘You can have it,’ said Tog moodily. ‘If we find it.’ He leaned back and scowled at the maps littering his desk. Too few, too undetailed, too frustrating. Waltham Abbey was the name of a place to the north of London – but just where was the abbey?

It was easy enough to point to a place on a map and give the answer but that was no help at all. Not when the maps were three hundred and fifty years out of date. Not when the very terrain had altered since then and landmarks had vanished. The maps were almost useless and the memory of the retro even more so.

The forests of early England had yielded to open fields and encroaching hamlets, the hamlets to villages and the whole engulfed in the brick tide of London. Then the woods had returned so that, now, verdure stood where streets had wound and even the hills had altered. No, he could not blame the retro – but he had relied on him.

He rose and strode to the open flap of the tent and stood staring outside. He had made a mistake, a bad one and he would have to pay for it. Here, on the outskirts, not even the general run of loot could be expected. Here had stood suburbs and small factories, dormitories for the workers of London. They could probe for years and find not even the cost.

Someone moved behind him. The retro stood at his side.

‘You will try again,’ said Brother Ambrose. ‘The lifeman has agreed to help me remember. The reliquary must be found.’

Tog nodded, not answering, listening to the distant sounds his men made as they searched. He had always despised the shotgun technique. Good loot couldn’t be found that way, the laws of chance and reason were against it. He liked the sharpshooter technique much better. The tracking down of probable loot, the organizing of an expedition, the probes and tests and then, with luck, the strike.

But there had been no strike for too long and now, he knew, his reputation was over. A scavenger lived by his luck.

‘The reliquary.’ Brother Ambrose was insistent. Tog cut him short.

‘We will try one more time,’ he said. ‘If you agree to go into deep-hypnosis, track in trance – and if you can guarantee the basic cost.’ He turned to where the lifeman sat with the patience of his profession. ‘He can arrange the details.’

‘But—’

‘Shut up!’ Tog brushed aside the other’s protest. He leaned forward, head tilted a little, listening.

‘You can’t do this to me!’ The retro was desperate. ‘You –’

‘Hold your tongue!’ This time the sounds were louder, more distinct. Tog stepped forward as a man burst into the camp. He was sweating, his face red with effort, but he was grinning too.

‘Tog!’ he shouted. ‘Saul! Come quick! We’ve found something!’

It was a hole but a hole rimmed with metal and sealed by a door. It rested in a pit which had been dug with furious haste and a man crouched over it, burner in hand, the flame spreading as it bit into the metal. Another stood, sonar in hand, listening to echoes.

‘Give me that.’ Saul snatched the instrument, clamped earphones over his head, frowned as he made adjustments. ‘Quiet!’ he yelled. ‘All of you, shut up!’

In the silence the thin trickle of falling soil sounded very loud.

‘It’s hollow.’ Saul handed back the instrument. ‘Who found it?’

‘I did.’ A man thrust his way forward. ‘I was probing around with a rod.’ He lifted a thin shaft of weighted steel. ‘The place looked promising so I gave it the works.’ He gave a little chuckle, semi-intoxicated with his find. ‘I don’t know what made me stick at it so long. Instinct, I guess.’

Tog nodded, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the area. A good scavenger needed a nose for loot and he employed only the best.

‘Keep working at that door,’ he ordered. ‘Let me know when it’s open.’ He stepped back, Saul close at his heels, ignoring the excited babble rising from the men. ‘What do you think of it, Saul?’

‘It could be a find.’ The probeman searched the area with experienced eyes. ‘The upper structure’s fallen but that’s natural – the trees would see to that, but that door looks as if it was built to last. Rust-proof alloy and well mounted in thick concrete and, from what I could tell from the sonar, the interior is clean.’

‘Strong roof?’

‘It would have to be to stand that weight.’ Saul looked at the hill of debris, the thick roots of encroaching trees, the weight of almost four centuries. ‘A tall building,’ he mused. ‘Four, maybe six storeys, and if it was recent that means lots of reinforced concrete and plenty of mass.’ He shrugged. ‘It could be another bomb-proof,’ he pointed out. ‘Full of bones and nothing else.’

‘So far from the centre?’

‘It could be.’ Saul shrugged again. ‘Well, we’ll soon know.’

It took twenty minutes to burn open the door and, fast as Saul was, the guildsman was faster. He waved them back as, hooded and shapeless in protective clothing, he advanced with his geigers. Carefully he tested the area, thrust himself through the opening, vanished from view. The men of the Power Guild had never lacked courage.

‘It’s clean,’ he said five minutes later. He’d thrown back his hood and breathed gratefully of the cool air. ‘Residual stuff only and it falls off from the opening. It’s all yours, Tog, but remember to call me if you break into anything new.’

Tog grunted, already fastening the protective armour which the engineers claimed . . .