"That was very good!" the waiter said.

"What did you say?" Chuck asked, unable to hear him clearly.

"I said, that was very good!"

Chuck more or less caught his meaning by lip reading, because the crowd sounds were booming at him from every side. Then he listened to what they were saying.

All: Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb (repeat ad infinitum).

Persemid sat at Chuck's left. She tried to order, but the noise was too great. Even her shout was drowned in the racket coming from the other patrons. The waiter didn't seem to hear her.

Waiter: (to Pipistrella) Madame?

Pipistrella: (smiling at waiter) I'll have the poetry and asparagus.

Waiter: Very good, madame. (to Sean) Sir?

Persemid glared, but she waited for a moment until the man had taken Sean's order. But as soon as she drew breath to speak, the crowd started chanting again.

All: Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb (repeat ad infinitum).

Waiter: (to Hiramus) Sir?

Hiramus: (indicating Persemid) You missed the lady.

Waiter: What was that, sir? I did not compre'en' you.

Chuck: (shouting) He said, you forgot to take the other lady's order! Excuse me! What about this lady?

Waiter: I am so sorry, madame. (cocks his head and holds pencil ready) What would you like?

Persemid: (angrily points to something at random in the menu) Chuck: I'm sorry that happened.

She was as angry that someone had to help her as she was for having the waiter ignore her. Having Chuck be nice about it only made her feel worse.

Persemid: Forget about it. It happens all the time.

Chuck: (outraged) But, that's wrong. Nobody should be ignored, especially when you're the paying customer.

Persemid: (snapping) Forget it!

She turned her back on Chuck, leaving him alone to observe his surroundings.

Newspaper clippings were passed around like platters of appetizers, offering everyone who was mentioned in them a little taste of fame. The wine stewards were reviewers, too. The pop of champagne bottles that heralded the receipt of good news gave way to the fizzing of the wine in glasses. Chuck thought he could hear voices coming from the wine that offered the same heady intoxication as verbal praise. Everyone wanted to be a part of a success. When the corks popped, people came from all over the restaurant, even literally from out of the woodwork.

Chuck glanced up as a plate was put down before him. It was empty. Perhaps the food in the Big Hat was like the dancers at the duke's palace: invisible. Following Keir's example he picked up his knife and fork, but they discovered only the surface of the china. He frowned at his guide, who was happily sawing and chewing. Chuck glanced at Persemid, who looked as if she agreed how ridiculous the situation was. Still, Keir was their guide. Chuck pretended he had something good to eat before him, cut off an invisible bite, and chewed on an intangible mouthful. He felt silly, but it wasn't so bad since they were all doing it.

A deep drum roll sounded, and the warm, resonant voice of an unseen announcer broke in on their conversation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Big Hat is very pleased to be able to welcome the heir to the throne of the Dreamland, her serene highness, Princess Leonora! Let's give her a big hand!"

A spotlight traveled through the crowd and lit on the front door. Chuck craned to see as a woman entered the room.

"Yes, here she is, wearing an off-the-shoulder evening dress in periwinkle. You all know that that's her highness's favorite color. Yes, she's greeting the great Dyer Sandman. He's smiling, as who wouldn't, to receive the mark of favor from such a great lady. And now, she's approaching the center of the room!"

Chuck found himself gawking, and ordered his tongue back into his head. Princess Leonora was beautiful, even more beautiful than Pipistrella, whom he had thought was the absolute ideal. In comparison, his fellow Visitor looked artificial and shallow. He found, to his amazement, that there was a notch above perfection; Pip was . . . ordinary. He had a mental adjustment to make.

"Isn't she lovely?" the announcer crooned, over the public address system. Chuck joined in the wild applause as the princess was escorted to a table. She looked over at them, beaming and waving, then sat down, still smiling vivaciously, and dropped her eyes to the menu handed to her by the deferential headwaiter. The applause cut off as if a switch had been thrown. But a change had been wrought.

Something real, more than real, had been introduced into this completely artificial setting. Chuck felt an imbalance take hold. Tinsel began to flutter down from the ceiling. The illusion was failing.

Crowd: (suddenly) Boo!

Chuck looked up. A big man with thick black eyebrows was slinking toward the exit, glaring at the people all around him. They were hissing and shouting catcalls at him.

Chuck: What happened?

Waiter: (dramatically) He . . . didn't leave a tip.

Chuck felt like grinning. Unreality reestablished itself again.

Maitre D': All right, scene two! And . . . action!

"So no one here currently has a job, that is what you're saying?" Morit asked, cutting off another would-be actor's sad and rambling story. Every one of the hundreds of people in the shabby, utilitarian room paused, reluctant to speak.

"We're . . . between contracts," said a woman, throwing back her long, blonde hair. She was halfway pretty. Her face was frighteningly asymmetrical, with eyes on different levels, and a nose that took a distinct leftward turning around a large wart.

"It isn't fair!" a man complained. He was a strapping, burly man with an admirable cleft chin and flashing eyes, but his voice was so high it hurt Morit's ears. "There ought to be room for non-standard characters."

"Sleepers know," a woman with heavy five-o'clock shadow said, "it's not our fault we don't fit the molds."

"Sleepers," snorted a man with ping-pong paddles instead of hands. "It's the Sleepers' fault we look like this!"

Morit smiled, his teeth growing points like sharks. "It's the Sleepers' fault that you're like that at all," he said, persuasively. "Not only do they gift you with endless misery, they do it to make themselves feel better. How do you like that? You suffer throughout your existence for their self- esteem!"

"Well, if we didn't, we might not exist at all," said an elephant-faced woman, with a wistful expression on her wrinkled, gray brow, but she was wavering. "That's something."

"We ought to be self-actualizing," Morit said, warming to his subject. He had found allies.

Converting them to the cause was easy. "Not only do we serve them to better their mental health, but we get no peace from them even when they are not employing us! They come in person to view their chattels, to look down in amusement upon the puny beings that they have engendered-to laugh at us!"

"Dear!" Blanda said, warningly. "That's not true. The Visitors have shown you no harm."

"Visitors?" demanded the ping-pong man. "Are there Visitors here?"

"Yes," said Morit. "I am offering you an opportunity to send a message to our manipulative creators in the Waking World! We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!"

All the actors in the cafeteria raised a rousing cheer, although the majority looked uncomfortable.

Morit jumped to his feet. "I know where they are! Let's give them a proper Dreamlander reception!

We'll set a trap to catch them when they least expect it! Down with the Visitors!"

"Down with the Visitors!" As one, the actors rose to their feet. Morit threw an arm over his head and started marching, leading his audience toward the door. After a few paces, three quarters of them flitted away, mumbling apologies. Fools, Morit thought. They were unwilling to commit to action that would set them free.

"Dear, don't do this!" Blanda called after him. "My love, this is wrong!"

Morit left her behind in the cafeteria, a troubled look on her normally placid face.

Chapter 28

The drum roll heralded the warm voice of the announcer over the dining room.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure you've been waiting impatiently for these last few awards. For the award for Best Performance by a Female Dinner Guest, the winner is . . ." Chuck heard the sound of an envelope being torn open. "Princess Leonora!"

The assembled guests, all in tuxedos and evening dresses, cheered wildly. The princess, who had finished her dinner, was helped out of her chair to accept the gold statuette of a stylized man holding a fork. Smiling and waving, she exited the room. An unseen orchestra played her out. The drum roll - resumed.

"And now, for Best Performance by a Male Dinner Guest, the award goes to . . . Chuck Meadows!"

"Huh?" Chuck said, caught off guard. A bevy of smiling waiters and waitresses descended on him, pulled him to his feet, shaking his hand. He clutched the statue, beaming at the crowd. He'd never won anything before. "Uh, thanks! Thanks so much!"

"Stay where you are, Master Chuck," the announcer said, "because the final award of the evening, the one you've all been waiting for, the award for Best Table is . . . the Keir Party! Let's all give them a big hand!"

The audience went wild. Best Guest statuettes were presented to each of the diners. Chuck, holding his two awards and waving to the crowd, let the ladies precede him out the doorway. Pipistrella sauntered out, throwing kisses to everyone. They shrieked out her name and threw flowers at her feet.

Persemid followed a few steps behind, nodding and smiling shyly. They walked out of the restaurant doorway into a balmy evening in a hail of flashbulbs that left their eyes dazzled.

"Oh, look!" Pip exclaimed, walking toward the open door of a long, black car. "They've brought us a limousine!" She floated across to it and was handed inside by a large man in a black uniform. Chuck and Persemid were just behind her.

"That's really nice of them," Chuck said, gesturing to Persemid to precede him.

"Wait!" cried Sean. "There's no floor!"

For the one split second before he started falling, Chuck thought, I believed in that floor until he said that.

His stomach rose up against his windpipe in a sickening lurch as his feet dropped out from under him. Chuck flailed his arms around, trying to grab onto anything. With a hoarse cry, he started turning head over heels. His heart pounded like a drum. He was falling slowly into a bottomless pit, just as he'd always had in his most terrifying dreams. He had never stayed asleep long enough to find out what happened when he hit bottom. He'd always awakened gasping. But this was real. He was really here. He could die.

Persemid was screaming as she fell past him. Without thinking, Chuck threw out an arm to catch her. It stretched out like a chunk of rubber under her weight, but she slowed, then sprang upward into his arms. Their Best Guest statuettes tumbled down into the darkness. Loud danger music started to play, filling the air around them with tension.

"I probably wouldn't like you very much in the Waking World," Persemid said, clinging to him, "but I'm glad you're here now." Her nervousness created a solid steel shield between them. The cold on his belly made him flinch back, almost dropping her.

"Don't do that!" he said. Searchlights raked them with white light, making his head spin.

"I really don't want to sound paranoid," Persemid said, her voice rising with hysteria, "but I think someone is trying to kill us."

They were falling so slowly Chuck hoped they might survive hitting the ground, but how far below them was it? He couldn't see anything, and the white lights disoriented him. The danger music, heavy on the horns, started to get on his already shredded nerves. Chuck couldn't think.

"Shut up!" he yelled wildly. The music only grew louder.

"Stop it," Persemid snapped. "It's going to get worse while we're tense. Try and calm down.""Calm down? I can't calm down. We're falling to our deaths!" he shouted over the music. "This is a dream state. Can't we transform into birds or something, and fly up?"

"Can you concentrate on birds right now?" she demanded. Chuck looked around him. Now they were falling feetfirst, their hair whistling upward from the force of the wind. The tossing beam illuminated jagged rocks. His throat tightened with fear.

"No, I can't."

"Well, I can't either! So forget about it!"

"I thought you learned stuff like this when you came here!" Chuck yelled. "You keep saying that I shouldn't know this or that because this is my first time here."

"Did you come here to learn how to think in a life-or-death crisis?" Persemid asked.

"No! I came here to learn about myself!"

"Well, so did I!" Persemid said, her eyes wild with fear. "And one of the things I haven't learned yet is how to deal with being in a crisis! That much I know. I'm secure in that knowledge!"

Chuck's racing brain flashed through all the statistics he knew about death by falls from high places. Suddenly, he felt that they were slowing. They halted in midair. Chuck breathed a few times, to convince himself he really wasn't falling any longer. Persemid shifted. Her grip tightened, almost throttling him.

"You're strangling me," Chuck said, pulling aside his shirt. "Loop your arm through there. It'll give you a better grip, and I'll be able to move my head."

Persemid gave him a strange look, but she put her hand through the hole in his chest and wiggled her fingers. "This is creepy," she said, putting her meaty arm all the way through and locking her arms around him. "It really doesn't hurt you?"

"Well, it does," Chuck admitted, "but not from having you hang on it. I'm just all achy inside. My problem."

Persemid sounded soft and sympathetic for the first time in their acquaintance. "It'll get better," she said.

"Has it for you?" he asked. A passing searchlight lit up her face. He knew she was starting to say "None of your business," but stopped herself.

"A little. This trip has been good for me. I really resented like mad having more of you with me. I had hoped to have Keir to myself, too."

They laughed. Chuck felt the hole in his chest starting to close up just a little.

"Stop that," Persemid ordered. "I don't want to be stuck to you forever. Now how do we get out of here?"

"If we can't do it ourselves, wait for someone to help us," Chuck said, amazed by how reasonable he sounded. He felt around him, hoping there was a hand- or foothold within reach. He tried not to - believe it was impossible that he was suspended in midair. He didn't want whatever was holding him to give way again.

"This isn't the first time something like this has happened," Persemid said, in a low voice like a whimper. "Don't think I'm crazy."

"I don't," Chuck said. "I've been thinking along the same lines for a while, what with things falling on us, the train nearly crashing . . . What does Keir tell you?"

"The wolf?" Persemid said, fondly. "He shows me pictures in my head. He never shows me danger or death. Just peace and the resolution of my problems." Her voice hardened. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Keir never tells me about trouble, either," Chuck said. "He just lets me fall into it. Like this.