Star quest

right through your skull, right into your brain."
    The boy screamed again. Even the trees seemed to shudder, to hear. "All right," his weak voice said at last. "I will try. But I can
only
try." He closed the white orbs, covering them with dark lids.
    Suddenly as he hung there, Tohm felt the world swaying about him. He moved to grab hold of a limb—and then was no longer Tohm…
    He was color…
    A minimum of crimson in a sea of blue
…
    A droplet of cinnabar, swirling and tumbling, surging and jailing, blending and rebelling…
    Waves of lapis lazuli swept him into currents of ocher and gamboge
…
Splashing wetly, he crashed upon a beach of heliotrope spotted with cadim
…
    REDREDREDREDREDRED… RED… REDRED-KEDREDREDRED…
    There was no identity. The loss of self was relief, pure and fresh and wonderful
…
    A gestalt, single organism of all shades of red: rouge, scarlet, vermilion, madder, lake, cochineal
…
    All one
…
    … One all…
    REDREDREDREDRED
upon a land of iridescent pitch and prismatic purple
…
    Then all the colors began to fade, and there was a land and he was again a man. He was no individual, but an agglomeration of all a man wishes to be: large of body, great of intellect, full of sexual desires and abilities. He was suave, yet an animal. He was cunning, yet innocent. He walked forth naked through the forests of swaying palms.
    And naked came the maidens. The drifting leaves caught in the rivers of the wind began changing into women, all shades and sizes of women. Short and tall, thin and full, large breasts and small, they came. All were beautiful…
    Ghost women…
    Lovely women…
    REDREDREDREDRED
he swayed toward them like a wave, desire frothing within him
…
    Lilting, soft, lustful, they swam at him like-Suddenly
he was hanging in the air as before, staring into the campfire. He shook his head to clear whatever was left of the dreams. The boy was clutching his face in his hands. "I can't. Tired now. Let me rest. Later. Let me rest for now."
    "Tie him down," the fat one said. The others grumbled in agreement. Tohm realized that it had been the boy making the dreams. He was a psychedelic, an organic, living hallucinogenic. He was reaching out with his mind and altering the fabric of reality, twisting things to show them what was not, to give them pleasure of the Never Would Be.
    The men grunted, standing. The leader pounded a tent peg into the ground. Another. Yet another.
    Tohm fumbled in his pockets and removed his gas pellet pistol. Floating into the clearing, he said, That's far enough."
    The fat nomad, despite his ponderous weight, moved quickly, heaving a throwing knife from the orange sash about his waist. Tohm dove like a swimmer, floated up above head level, dodged a second knife, and blasted the man. The pellet flashed away, sunk a few inches into the flesh before suddenly expanding, exploding the nomad's stomach from the inside out
    The leader shouted orders. Tohm swung on him, pulled the trigger, saw the face blast open from the nose, spilling brains.
    The others were running now, terrified, leaving all of their belongings. He turned to the boy, but the boy was gone. He searched the land about and saw that the boy was running with the four men—without being forced to!
    "Wait," he called, "I'll help you. I won't hurt you, boy!"
    But the boy was gone. He had been terribly fast for a weak, weary youngster. Tohm turned to the two bodies. He was confused. Why hadn't the boy come to him! He had stopped the nomads from killing him. Wasn't that grounds enough for friendship? And had these killings been in vain? Had he misinterpreted things?
    He floated back to the highway, clouds of uneasiness and doubt drifting through his mind. He knew little of the world, coming from a prim village. Triggy was right; he could not grasp the concepts. Even the people seemed to act strangely. Paralleling the roadway, he set out at once for the city, trying to arrange the incidents at the campfire into a sensible order. He did not feel terribly guilty about the killing, for these were Romaghins. Perhaps they were not the ruling class, but they were as ruthless and cunning as their chiefs. And somewhere in the capital, they held his Tarnilee.
    When he reached the tip of the peninsula, the city had vanished.

Chapter Five
    Bur THAT WAS IMPOSSIBLE! A city simply did not disappear. He realized now that the glow of light had been gone when he left the nomad camp, but it had not struck him. Now it did.