"You don't want life as a Sleeper, do you?" I pursued. "You did want a relatively short sentence of a few months or a few years. I can think of two reasons why. The answer is probably a combination of both. In the first place, you are a joy-popper with Dreams—you don't want to live out your life in one, but you like a brief Dream every few years like an occasional dose of a narcotic. In the second place, you probably have political reasons for wanting to hide out somewhere in safety for the next few years. The world isn't as placid as the newscasts sometimes make it seem."

He didn't say anything. I didn't think he had to.

"You wanted to make sure I made a painfully scrupulous decision in your case," I went on. "You didn't want me to pardon you completely because of your high position, but at the same time you didn't want too long a sentence. But I'm doing you no favors. You get no time from me, Coleman."

"How did you decide to do this?" he asked. "Don't tell me you never doubted. We've all doubted since we found out about the machines: which was real and which was the Dream? How did you decide to risk this?"

"I acted the only way I could act," I said. "I decided I had to act as if my life was real and that you were lying. I decided that because, if all this were false, if I could have no more confidence in my own mind and my own senses than that, I didn't give a damn if it were all a Dream."

Coleman stood up and walked out of my office.

The clock told me it was after five. I began clearing my desk.

Captain Keller stuck his head in, unannounced. "Hey, Warden, there's an active one out here. He claims that Dreamland compromises His plan for the Free Will of the Universe."

"Well, escort him inside, Captain," I said.

I put away my pills. Solving simple problems such as the new visitor presented always helped me to relax.

 Prev. P 16/16