Dream People I — The Mysterious Magic Visitors

CHAPTER 10

The Daughter and the Dreamer

Mac visited Daniel on an afternoon when the light made his dream sketches seem almost architectural. He spread the pages across the table: towers, a central fountain, an elevated lane, and a small tree near the square. She teased him about planning a vacation to an imaginary destination, then became serious when she saw how many details recurred. Daniel explained that the drawings were not evidence of another dimension. They were a record of what he remembered. Mac approved of the distinction. They spent the afternoon discussing stories, films, and the way imagination could turn a private experience into something other people could explore.

Daniel described his hope that people might someday understand dreaming better. Mac asked what he would do if he could speak to someone inside the dream. 'First I'd apologize for frightening them,' he answered. 'Then I'd ask where I was.' She laughed. 'That's a good start.' Before leaving, Mac noticed a small sketch of a child beside a tree. Daniel said he could not remember the girl's face clearly, only that she had waved. Mac encouraged him to draw the scene anyway. 'Sometimes the things you almost remember are worth writing down too,' she said.

Daniel added the girl to the page, though he was careful not to invent a name. Later he called QUIRON and discussed the limits of memory. QUIRON suggested recording the time of awakening, the quality of sleep, and whether a dream had been lucid. Daniel

wondered aloud whether a future noninvasive system could help reconstruct dream imagery. QUIRON explained that present-day neuroscience could not read a complete dream as if it were a film, but collaborative research might improve pattern analysis. Daniel named the idea DREAMLINK in his notes, then laughed at himself for naming a machine that did not exist.

On the other side of the boundary, Seralyn showed Elara her newest drawing. It depicted the visitor looking down at the little girl who waved. 'Do you think he has a daughter?' Seralyn asked. Elara answered that she could not know. Seralyn looked at the painting again. 'I hope someone is waiting for him when he goes home.' In a quiet room on Earth Temple, Mac sent her father a good-night message.

The Daughter's Question Mac found an old notebook among Daniel's sketches. It contained plans for stories he had never finished, fragments of music, and a page headed QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE. The first question was whether imagination could lead people toward discoveries without pretending to be evidence. She read it aloud and raised an eyebrow.

'You were asking that before the flying dreams.'

'I ask a lot of questions,' Daniel said.

'Yes. You do.' They laughed. Later, over coffee, she asked what he would do if the dream city turned out to be real. He began with the obvious answers: visit, explore, ask questions. Then he stopped.

'I'd have to think about the people there,' he said. 'I keep treating the place like an adventure. If it were real, it would be their home.'

Mac nodded. 'And you'd be a stranger walking through it.' That evening Daniel added another line to his journal: IF I EVER MEET THEM, LISTEN FIRST. He did not know how important that instruction would become.