The Philip K. Dick Megapack

by Dick, Philip K.

  The EEP threw its heat beam on. The beam shifted in a wide band toward the crowd of Pas-udeti. Crude hand weapons appeared. A clatter of bullets burst around Tony; they were firing at the EEP. He was dimly aware of the metal body beside him. A shuddering crash—the EEP was toppled over. The crowd poured over it; the metal hull was lost from sight.

  Like a demented animal, the crowd tore at the struggling EEP. A few of them smashed in its head; others tore off struts and shiny arm-sections. The EEP ceased struggling. The crowd moved away, panting and clutching jagged remains. They saw Tony.

  As the first line of them reached for him, the protective envelope high above them shattered. A Terran scout ship thundered down, heat beam screaming. The crowd scattered in confusion, some firing, some throwing stones, others leaping for safety.

  Tony picked himself up and made his way unsteadily toward the spot where the scout was landing.

  * * * *

  “I’m sorry,” Joe Rossi said gently. He touched his son on the shoulder. “I shouldn’t have let you go down there today. I should have known.”

  Tony sat hunched over in the big plastic easychair. He rocked back and forth, face pale with shock. The scout ship which had rescued him had immediately headed back toward Karnet; there were other Earthmen to bring out, besides this first load. The boy said nothing. His mind was blank. He still heard the roar of the crowd, felt its hate—a century of pent-up fury and resentment. The memory drove out everything else; it was all around him, even now. And the sight of the floundering EEP, the metallic ripping sound, as its arms and legs were torn off and carried away.

  His mother dabbed at his cuts and scratches with antiseptic. Joe Rossi shakily lit a cigarette and said, “If your EEP hadn’t been along they’d have killed you. Beetles.” He shuddered. “I never should have let you go down there. All this time.… They might have done it any time, any day. Knifed you. Cut you open with their filthy goddamn claws.”

  Below the settlement the reddish-yellow sunlight glinted on gunbarrels. Already, dull booms echoed against the crumbling hills. The defense ring was going into action. Black shapes darted and scurried up the side of the slope. Black patches moved out from Karnet, toward the Terran settlement, across the dividing line the Confederation surveyors had set up a century ago. Karnet was a bubbling pot of activity. The whole city rumbled with feverish excitement.

  Tony raised his head. “They—they turned our flank.”

  “Yeah.” Joe Rossi stubbed out his cigarette. “They sure did. That was at one o’clock. At two they drove a wedge right through the center of our line. Split the fleet in half. Broke it up—sent it running. Picked us off one by one as we fell back. Christ, they’re like maniacs. Now that they’ve got the scent, the taste of our blood.”

  “But it’s getting better,” Leah fluttered. “Our main fleet units are beginning to appear.”

  “We’ll get them,” Joe muttered. “It’ll take a while. But by God we’ll wipe them out. Every last one of them. If it takes a thousand years. We’ll follow every last ship down—we’ll get them all.” His voice rose in frenzy. “Beetles! Goddamn insects! When I think of them, trying to hurt my kid, with their filthy black claws—”

  “If you were younger, you’d be in the line,” Leah said. “It’s not your fault you’re too old. The heart strain’s too great. You did your job. They can’t let an older person take chances. It’s not your fault.”

  Joe clenched his fists. “I feel so—futile. If there was only something I could do.”

  “The fleet will take care of them,” Leah said soothingly. “You said so yourself. They’ll hunt every one of them down. Destroy them all. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Joe sagged miserably. “It’s no use. Let’s cut it out. Let’s stop kidding ourselves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Face it! We’re not going to win, not this time. We went too far. Our time’s come.”

  There was silence.

  Tony sat up a little. “When did you know?”

  “I’ve known a long time.”

  “I found out today. I didn’t understand, at first. This is—stolen ground. I was born here, but it’s stolen ground.”

  “Yes. It’s stolen. It doesn’t belong to us.”

  “We’re here because we’re stronger. But now we’re not stronger. We’re being beaten.”

  “They know Terrans can be licked. Like anybody else.” Joe Rossi’s face was gray and flabby. “We took their planets away from them. Now they’re taking them back. It’ll be a while, of course. We’ll retreat slowly. It’ll be another five centuries going back. There’re a lot of systems between here and Sol.”

  Tony shook his head, still uncomprehending. “Even Llyre and B’prith. All of them. Waiting for their time to come. For us to lose and go away again. Where we came from.”

  Joe Rossi paced back and forth. “Yeah, we’ll be retreating from now on. Giving ground, instead of taking it. It’ll be like this today—losing fights, draws. Stalemates and worse.”

  He raised his feverish eyes toward the ceiling of the little metal housing unit, face wild with passion and misery.

  “But, by God, we’ll give them a run for their money. All the way back! Every inch!”

  THE HANGING STRANGER

  Five o’clock Ed Loyce washed up, tossed on his hat and coat, got his car out and headed across town toward his TV sales store. He was tired. His back and shoulders ached from digging dirt out of the basement and wheeling it into the back yard. But for a forty-year-old man he had done okay. Janet could get a new vase with the money he had saved; and he liked the idea of repairing the foundations himself!

  It was getting dark. The setting sun cast long rays over the scurrying commuters, tired and grim-faced, women loaded down with bundles and packages, students swarming home from the university, mixing with clerks and businessmen and drab secretaries. He stopped his Packard for a red light and then started it up again. The store had been open without him; he’d arrive just in time to spell the help for dinner, go over the records of the day, maybe even close a couple of sales himself. He drove slowly past the small square of green in the center of the street, the town park. There were no parking places in front of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. He cursed under his breath and swung the car in a U-turn. Again he passed the little square of green with its lonely drinking fountain and bench and single lamppost.

  From the lamppost something was hanging. A shapeless dark bundle, swinging a little with the wind. Like a dummy of some sort. Loyce rolled down his window and peered out. What the hell was it? A display of some kind? Sometimes the Chamber of Commerce put up displays in the square.

  Again he made a U-turn and brought his car around. He passed the park and concentrated on the dark bundle. It wasn’t a dummy. And if it was a display it was a strange kind. The hackles on his neck rose and he swallowed uneasily. Sweat slid out on his face and hands.

  It was a body. A human body.

  * * * *

  “Look at it!” Loyce snapped. “Come on out here!”

  Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, buttoning his pin-stripe coat with dignity. “This is a big deal, Ed. I can’t just leave the guy standing there.”

  “See it?” Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle swinging from it. “There it is. How the hell long has it been there?” His voice rose excitedly. “What’s wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!”

  Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. “Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn’t be there.”

  “A reason! What kind of a reason?”

  Fergusson shrugged. “Like the time the Traffic Safety Council put that wrecked Buick there. Some sort of civic thing. How would I know?”

  Jack Potte
r from the shoe shop joined them. “What’s up, boys?”

  “There’s a body hanging from the lamppost,” Loyce said. “I’m going to call the cops.”

  “They must know about it,” Potter said. “Or otherwise it wouldn’t be there.”

  “I got to get back in.” Fergusson headed back into the store. “Business before pleasure.”

  Loyce began to get hysterical. “You see it? You see it hanging there? A man’s body! A dead man!”

  “Sure, Ed. I saw it this afternoon when I went out for coffee.”

  “You mean it’s been there all afternoon?”

  “Sure. What’s the matter?” Potter glanced at his watch. “Have to run. See you later, Ed.”

  Potter hurried off, joining the flow of people moving along the sidewalk. Men and women, passing by the park. A few glanced up curiously at the dark bundle—and then went on. Nobody stopped. Nobody paid any attention.

  “I’m going nuts,” Loyce whispered. He made his way to the curb and crossed out into traffic, among the cars. Horns honked angrily at him. He gained the curb and stepped up onto the little square of green.

  The man had been middle-aged. His clothing was ripped and torn, a gray suit, splashed and caked with dried mud. A stranger. Loyce had never seen him before. Not a local man. His face was partly turned, away, and in the evening wind he spun a little, turning gently, silently. His skin was gouged and cut. Red gashes, deep scratches of congealed blood. A pair of steel-rimmed glasses hung from one ear, dangling foolishly. His eyes bulged. His mouth was open, tongue thick and ugly blue.

  “For Heaven’s sake,” Loyce muttered, sickened. He pushed down his nausea and made his way back to the sidewalk. He was shaking all over, with revulsion—and fear.

  Why? Who was the man? Why was he hanging there? What did it mean?

  And—why didn’t anybody notice?

  He bumped into a small man hurrying along the sidewalk. “Watch it!” the man grated, “Oh, it’s you, Ed.”

  Ed nodded dazedly. “Hello, Jenkins.”

  “What’s the matter?” The stationery clerk caught Ed’s arm. “You look sick.”

  “The body. There in the park.”

  “Sure, Ed.” Jenkins led him into the alcove of LOYCE TV SALES AND SERVICE. “Take it easy.”

  Margaret Henderson from the jewelry store joined them. “Something wrong?”

  “Ed’s not feeling well.”

  Loyce yanked himself free. “How can you stand here? Don’t you see it? For God’s sake—”

  “What’s he talking about?” Margaret asked nervously.

  “The body!” Ed shouted. “The body hanging there!”

  More people collected. “Is he sick? It’s Ed Loyce. You okay, Ed?”

  “The body!” Loyce screamed, struggling to get past them. Hands caught at him. He tore loose. “Let me go! The police! Get the police!”

  “Ed—”

  “Better get a doctor!”

  “He must be sick.”

  “Or drunk.”

  Loyce fought his way through the people. He stumbled and half fell. Through a blur he saw rows of faces, curious, concerned, anxious. Men and women halting to see what the disturbance was. He fought past them toward his store. He could see Fergusson inside talking to a man, showing him an Emerson TV set. Pete Foley in the back at the service counter, setting up a new Philco. Loyce shouted at them frantically. His voice was lost in the roar of traffic and the murmur around him.

  “Do something!” he screamed. “Don’t stand there! Do something! Something’s wrong! Something’s happened! Things are going on!”

  The crowd melted respectfully for the two heavy-set cops moving efficiently toward Loyce.

  * * * *

  “Name?” the cop with the notebook murmured.

  “Loyce.” He mopped his forehead wearily. “Edward C. Loyce. Listen to me. Back there—”

  “Address?” the cop demanded. The police car moved swiftly through traffic, shooting among the cars and buses. Loyce sagged against the seat, exhausted and confused. He took a deep shuddering breath.

  “1368 Hurst Road.”

  “That’s here in Pikeville?”

  “That’s right.” Loyce pulled himself up with a violent effort. “Listen to me. Back there. In the square. Hanging from the lamppost—”

  “Where were you today?” the cop behind the wheel demanded.

  “Where?” Loyce echoed.

  “You weren’t in your shop, were you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No, I was home. Down in the basement.”

  “In the basement?”

  “Digging. A new foundation. Getting out the dirt to pour a cement frame. Why? What has that to do with—”

  “Was anybody else down there with you?”

  “No. My wife was downtown. My kids were at school.” Loyce looked from one heavy-set cop to the other. Hope flicked across his face, wild hope. “You mean because I was down there I missed—the explanation? I didn’t get in on it? Like everybody else?”

  After a pause the cop with the notebook said: “That’s right. You missed the explanation.”

  “Then it’s official? The body—it’s supposed to be hanging there?”

  “It’s supposed to be hanging there. For everybody to see.”

  Ed Loyce grinned weakly. “Good Lord. I guess I sort of went off the deep end. I thought maybe something had happened. You know, something like the Ku Klux Klan. Some kind of violence. Communists or Fascists taking over.” He wiped his face with his breast-pocket handkerchief, his hands shaking. “I’m glad to know it’s on the level.”

  “It’s on the level.” The police car was getting near the Hall of Justice. The sun had set. The streets were gloomy and dark. The lights had not yet come on.

  “I feel better,” Loyce said. “I was pretty excited there, for a minute. I guess I got all stirred up. Now that I understand, there’s no need to take me in, is there?”

  The two cops said nothing.

  “I should be back at my store. The boys haven’t had dinner. I’m all right, now. No more trouble. Is there any need of—”

  “This won’t take long,” the cop behind the wheel interrupted. “A short process. Only a few minutes.”

  “I hope it’s short,” Loyce muttered. The car slowed down for a stoplight. “I guess I sort of disturbed the peace. Funny, getting excited like that and—”

  Loyce yanked the door open. He sprawled out into the street and rolled to his feet. Cars were moving all around him, gaining speed as the light changed. Loyce leaped onto the curb and raced among the people, burrowing into the swarming crowds. Behind him he heard sounds, shouts, people running.

  They weren’t cops. He had realized that right away. He knew every cop in Pikeville. A man couldn’t own a store, operate a business in a small town for twenty-five years without getting to know all the cops.

  They weren’t cops—and there hadn’t been any explanation. Potter, Fergusson, Jenkins, none of them knew why it was there. They didn’t know—and they didn’t care. That was the strange part.

  Loyce ducked into a hardware store. He raced toward the back, past the startled clerks and customers, into the shipping room and through the back door. He tripped over a garbage can and ran up a flight of concrete steps. He climbed over a fence and jumped down on the other side, gasping and panting.

  There was no sound behind him. He had got away.

  He was at the entrance of an alley, dark and strewn with boards and ruined boxes and tires. He could see the street at the far end. A street light wavered and came on. Men and women. Stores. Neon signs. Cars.

  And to his right—the police station.

  He was close, terribly close. Past the loading platform of a grocery store rose
the white concrete side of the Hall of Justice. Barred windows. The police antenna. A great concrete wall rising up in the darkness. A bad place for him to be near. He was too close. He had to keep moving, get farther away from them.

  Them?

  Loyce moved cautiously down the alley. Beyond the police station was the City Hall, the old-fashioned yellow structure of wood and gilded brass and broad cement steps. He could see the endless rows of offices, dark windows, the cedars and beds of flowers on each side of the entrance.

  And—something else.

  Above the City Hall was a patch of darkness, a cone of gloom denser than the surrounding night. A prism of black that spread out and was lost into the sky.

  He listened. Good God, he could hear something. Something that made him struggle frantically to close his ears, his mind, to shut out the sound. A buzzing. A distant, muted hum like a great swarm of bees.

  Loyce gazed up, rigid with horror. The splotch of darkness, hanging over the City Hall. Darkness so thick it seemed almost solid. In the vortex something moved. Flickering shapes. Things, descending from the sky, pausing momentarily above the City Hall, fluttering over it in a dense swarm and then dropping silently onto the roof.

  Shapes. Fluttering shapes from the sky. From the crack of darkness that hung above him.

  He was seeing—them.

  * * * *

  For a long time Loyce watched, crouched behind a sagging fence in a pool of scummy water.

  They were landing. Coming down in groups, landing on the roof of the City Hall and disappearing inside. They had wings. Like giant insects of some kind. They flew and fluttered and came to rest—and then crawled crab-fashion, sideways, across the roof and into the building.

  He was sickened. And fascinated. Cold night wind blew around him and he shuddered. He was tired, dazed with shock. On the front steps of the City Hall were men, standing here and there. Groups of men coming out of the building and halting for a moment before going on.