"I'd say he's going to need quite a while to readjust," Peregrine said in a whisper. "Twenty-plus years is a lot to lose."
" I can only wish him a speedy recovery. It's difficult to feel sorry for myself considering his circumstances."
"Feeling sorry for oneself is an inalienable right." She yawned. "I can't believe how much I'm sleeping. Should have time for a nice long nap before we get to Thailand. Do you mind if I use your shoulder?"
"No. Please think of it as your own." He looked out the window. "Australia. Then where?"
She rested her head against him and closed her eyes. "Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Japan. Fortunato." She said the last word almost too quietly for him to hear. "I doubt we'll be running into him."
"But you will." He said it hoping to please her, but she looked at him as if she'd caught him going through her underwear.
"You know this? You've had one of those visions about me?" Someone had obviously told her about his power.
"Yes. I'm sorry. I really have no control over them." He looked back out the window, feeling ashamed.
She rested her head back onto his shoulder. "It's not your fault. Don't worry. I'm sure Tach will be able to do something for you."
"I hope so."
She'd been asleep for over an hour. He'd eaten onehanded to keep from waking her up. The roast beef he'd had was like a ball of lead in his stomach. He knew he would survive Western food at least until they reached Japan. The air was a low rumble as it rushed by the plane's metal skin. Peregrine breathed softly next to his ear. Jayewardene closed his eyes and prayed for dreamless sleep.
DOWN IN THE DREAMTIME
Edward Bryant
Cordelia Chaisson had dreamed about the murder less frequently during the month past. It surprised her she still thought of it even that much; after all, she had seen far worse. Work consumed her; the job with Global Fun & Games sufficiently exhausted her days; laboring on the AIDS/WCV benefit to be held in May at Xavier Desmond's Jokertown Funhouse took up much of the nights. Most evenings she went to sleep long after the eleven o'clock news. Five in the morning came all too early. There was little time for diversion.
But there were still the occasional bad nights of dreaming: -Coming up out of the Fourteenth Street station, heels clicking smartly on the dirty concrete, traffic muttering down from above. Hearing the voice a few steps up at street level saying, "Just give us the purse, bitch!" Hesitating, then going ahead anyway. Fearing, but--
She heard the second voice, the Aussie accent: "G'day, mates. Some problem here?"
Cordelia emerged from the stairwell into the sweltering night. She saw the instant tableau of two unshaven white punks backing a middle-aged woman into the space between the short row of phone carrels and the plywood butt of a shuttered newsstand. The woman had tight hold of both a yapping black poodle and her handbag.
Sun-burnt and rangy, the man Cordelia assumed was an Aussie faced down the two youths. He wore a sand-colored outfit that looked like a rougher, more authentic version of a Banana Republic ensemble. There was a bright, well-caredfor knife in one hand.
"A problem, sonny?" he repeated.
"No, no problem, dick-head," said one of the punks. He pulled out a short-barreled pistol from his jacket and shot the Aussie in the face.
It simply happened too quickly for Cordelia to react. As the man fell to the sidewalk, the assailants ran. The woman with the poodle screamed, momentarily harmonizing with the cries of the dog.
Cordelia ran to the man and knelt beside him. She felt for the pulse in his neck. Almost imperceptible. It was probably too late for CPR. She averted her gaze from the blood pooling beneath the man's head. The hot metallic smell of blood nauseated her. A siren wailed up the scale less than a block away.
"I've still got my purse!" the woman cried.
The man's face twitched. He died. "Shit," said Cordelia softly, helplessly. There wasn't a damned thing she could do.
Some kind of trouble now, Cordelia thought, as a darksuited man she didn't recognize waved her into one of GF&G's executive offices. Deep shit, maybe. The two women standing by the desk examined a stack of printouts. Red-haired and tough, Polly Rettig was marketing chief for the GF&G satellite service. She was Cordelia's immediate boss. The other woman was