The Dream Catcher

Ruth is a misfit, fated to disrupt the Web, the perfect pattern formed by the psychic joining of the minds of everyone in Ark Three. What will happen to her on New Year's Day when every other fifteen-year-old is given a position in the community according to their vocation? Ruth, it seems, has no talent.

But surprises are in store both for the com- munity inside the protective Dome of Ark Three, and no less for Ruth herself For evidence of other Arks in the world outside leads Ruth and a small band of Ark Three adventurers into an exciting and hazardous journey, and involvement in a dangerous political rescue operation at Ark One, where a giant computer has gained control of the people's minds.

A complete novel in itself, The Dream Catcher also continues the story of Lord Tomi and Rowan of Devil on my Back and is as dramatic and compelling as its predecessor.

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BOOKS BY MONICA HUGHES

Crisis on Conshelf Ten

Beyond the Dark River

Hunter in the Dark

The Keeper of the Isis Light

The Guardian of Isis

The Isis Pedlar

Devil on my Back

The Dream Catcher

The Dream Catcher

MONICA HUGHES

The Dream Catcher

New York ATHENEUM 1987

An Argo Book

Copyright © 1986 by Monica Hughes

No pan of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing

from the publisher.

Atheneum

Macmillan Publishing Company

866 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022

Composition by Computape (Pickering) Ltd., Great Britain

Printed and bound by Fairfield Graphics, Fairfield, Pennsylvania

First American Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hughes, Monica. The dream catcher.

SUMMARY: In a future world whose people are clustered

in domed cities, fifteen -year -old Ruth, who possesses

great extrasensory powers and who has received troubling

messages in her dreams from another center of civilization,

accompanies a group to search for the source of the messages.

[ 1. Fantasy] I. Title.

PZ7.H87364Dr 1987 [Fic] 86- 20584

ISBN 0-689-31331-4

The Tyranny of the Web

THREE FLOORS below ground, at eleven-thirty on a fine August morning, school was in session. It was Web Practice time, and in each classroom the students sat silently concentrating, eyes closed, minds reaching out to connect. Each person connecting to the next, each classroom with the other, until every neophyte and adult in Ark Three was linked. The energy level rose. The City hummed with a silent psychic hum. Beyond the dome that enclosed the City a light breeze tossed a meadowful of flowers. A skylark sang in the intensely blue sky. A bumblebee clambered clumsily into the throat of a columbine, searching for nectar. It backed up, dusty with pollen, and flew on a zigzag course to another flower.