ATD 864-891
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==Page 888==
[T]he dream came and found him...
Reef's contribution to the dream-scheme:
Something about the situation he [Reef] was in with Yash and Cyprian must have loosened up a seam, and the dream came and found him. He had thought once that being the Kieselguhr Kid in Webb's place would take care of all his mortal illusions, and now look at this that he'd come stepping into. Webb. even on that trail back from Jeshimon so long ago, that luminous and strident hallucination–would Webb recognize him now, recognize his politics anymore, his compulsions? In the dream they were no longer in the ghostly canyons of the McElmo but in the city, not Venice but noplace American either, with an umappable operational endlessless (sic) to its streets, the same ancient, disquieting pictures engraved on its walls as back in the McElmo, spelling out a story whose pitiless truth couldn't be admitted officially by the authorities here because of the danger to the public sanity.... It was darker out here than he had any idea of. In the distance Reef caught sight of a procession of miners in their long rubber coats, only one of them, about halfway along, with the candle stub in his hat lit. Like postulants in habits, they proceeded single file down a narrow street like a humid drift lit back or front by a yellow lamp. As Reef came closer he saw the bearer of the light was Webb.
Understanding that this was Webb's attempt to pass on another message, like up the séance in the Alps, Reef saw just for one lucid instant that this was the prcise intelligence he needed to get him back to where he had wandered off the trail, so long ago. And then he was awake and trying to remember why it was important.
"Small victories," Webb greeted him. "Just to come away with one or two. To praise and to honor the small victories where and however they happen."
"Hasn't been too many of htem lately, Pa," Reef tried to say.
"Not talking about yours, you numbskull."
