He stopped to look around. Everything was silent. There was no one in sight. He brought a thin rod from his waist and turned the handle of it. For a moment nothing happened. Then there was a shimmering in the air.
The crystal cage appeared and settled slowly down. Conger sighed. It was good to see it again. After all, it was his only way back.
He walked up on the ridge. He looked around with some satisfaction, his hands on his hips. Hudson’s field was spread out, all the way to the beginning of town. It was bare and flat, covered with a thin layer of snow.
Here, the Founder would come. Here, he would speak to them. And here the authorities would take him.
Only he would be dead before they came. He would be dead before he even spoke.
Conger returned to the crystal globe. He pushed through the door and stepped inside. He took the Slem-gun from the shelf and screwed the bolt into place. It was ready to go, ready to fire. For a moment he considered. Should he have it with him?
No. It might be hours before the Founder came, and suppose someone approached him in the meantime? When he saw the Founder coming toward the field, then he could go and get the gun.
Conger looked toward the shelf. There was the neat plastic package. He took it down and unwrapped it.
He held the skull in his hands, turning it over. In spite of himself, a cold feeling rushed through him. This was the man’s skull, the skull of the Founder, who was still alive, who would come here, this day, who would stand on the field not fifty yards away.
What if he could see this, his own skull, yellow and eroded? Two centuries old. Would he still speak? Would he speak, if he could see it, the grinning, aged skull? What would there be for him to say, to tell the people? What message could he bring?
What action would not be futile, when a man could look upon his own aged, yellowed skull? Better they should enjoy their temporary lives, while they still had them to enjoy.
A man who could hold his own skull in his hands would believe in few causes, few movements. Rather, he would preach the opposite—
A sound. Conger dropped the skull back on the shelf and took up the gun. Outside something was moving. He went quickly to the door, his heart beating. Was it he? Was it the Founder, wandering by himself in the cold, looking for a place to speak? Was he meditating over his words, choosing his sentences?
What if he could see what Conger had held!
He pushed the door open, the gun raised.
Lora!
He stared at her. She was dressed in a wool jacket and boots, her hands in her pockets. A cloud of steam came from her mouth and nostrils. Her breast was rising and falling.
Silently, they looked at each other. At last Conger lowered the gun.
“What is it?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
She pointed. She did not seem able to speak. He frowned; what was wrong with her?
“What is it?” he said. “What do you want?” He looked in the direction she had pointed. “I don’t see anything.”
“They’re coming.”
“They? Who? Who are coming?”
“They are. The police. During the night the Sheriff had the state police send cars. All around, everywhere. Blocking the roads. There’s about sixty of them coming. Some from town, some around behind.” She stopped, gasping. “They said—they said—”
“What?”
“They said you were some kind of a Communist. They said—”
* * * *
Conger went into the cage. He put the gun down on the shelf and came back out. He leaped down and went to the girl.
“Thanks. You came here to tell me? You don’t believe it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you come alone?”
“No. Joe brought me in his truck. From town.”
“Joe? Who’s he?”
“Joe French. The plumber. He’s a friend of Dad’s.”
“Let’s go.” They crossed the snow, up the ridge and onto the field. The little panel truck was parked half way across the field. A heavy short man was sitting behind the wheel, smoking his pipe. He sat up as he saw the two of them coming toward him.
“Are you the one?” he said to Conger.
“Yes. Thanks for warning me.”
The plumber shrugged. “I don’t know anything about this. Lora says you’re all right.” He turned around. “It might interest you to know some more of them are coming. Not to warn you—just curious.”
“More of them?” Conger looked toward the town. Black shapes were picking their way across the snow.
“People from the town. You can’t keep this sort of thing quiet, not in a small town. We all listen to the police radio; they heard the same way Lora did. Someone tuned in, spread it around—”
The shapes were getting closer. Conger could, make out a couple of them. Bill Willet was there, with some boys from the high school. The Appletons were along, hanging back in the rear.
“Even Ed Davies,” Conger murmured.
The storekeeper was toiling onto the field, with three or four other men from the town.
“All curious as hell,” French said. “Well, I guess I’m going back to town. I don’t want my truck shot full of holes. Come on, Lora.”
She was looking up at Conger, wide-eyed.
“Come on,” French said again. “Let’s go. You sure as hell can’t stay here, you know.”
“Why?”
“There may be shooting. That’s what they all came to see. You know that don’t you, Conger?”
“Yes.”
“You have a gun? Or don’t you care?” French smiled a little. “They’ve picked up a lot of people in their time, you know. You won’t be lonely.”
He cared, all right! He had to stay here, on the field. He couldn’t afford to let them take him away. Any minute the Founder would appear, would step onto the field. Would he be one of the townsmen, standing silently at the foot of the field, waiting, watching?
Or maybe he was Joe French. Or maybe one of the cops. Anyone of them might find himself moved to speak. And the few words spoken this day were going to be important for a long time.
And Conger had to be there, ready when the first word was uttered!
“I care,” he said. “You go on back to town. Take the girl with you.”
Lora got stiffly in beside Joe French. The plumber started up the motor. “Look at them, standing there,” he said. “Like vultures. Waiting to see someone get killed.”
* * * *
The truck drove away, Lora sitting stiff and silent, frightened now. Conger watched for a moment. Then he dashed back into the woods, between the trees, toward the ridge.
He could get away, of course. Anytime he wanted to he could get away. All he had to do was to leap into the crystal cage and turn the handles. But he had a job, an important job. He had to be here, here at this place, at this time.
He reached the cage and opened the door. He went inside and picked up the gun from the shelf. The Slem-gun would take care of them. He notched it up to full count. The chain reaction from it would flatten them all, the police, the curious, sadistic people—
They wouldn’t take him! Before they got him, all of them would be dead. He would get away. He would escape. By the end of the day they would all be dead, if that was what they wanted, and he—
He saw the skull.
Suddenly he put the gun down. He picked up the skull. He turned the skull over. He looked at the teeth. Then he went to the mirror.
He held the skull up, looking in the mirror. He pressed the skull against his cheek. Beside his own face the grinning skull leered back at him, beside his skull, against his living flesh.
He bared his teeth. And he knew.
It was his own sk
ull that he held. He was the one who would die. He was the Founder.
After a time he put the skull down. For a few minutes he stood at the controls, playing with them idly. He could hear the sound of motors outside, the muffled noise of men. Should he go back to the present, where the Speaker waited? He could escape, of course—
Escape?
He turned toward the skull. There it was, his skull, yellow with age. Escape? Escape, when he had held it in his own hands?
What did it matter if he put it off a month, a year, ten years, even fifty? Time was nothing. He had sipped chocolate with a girl born a hundred and fifty years before his time. Escape? For a little while, perhaps.
But he could not really escape, no more so than anyone else had ever escaped, or ever would.
Only, he had held it in his hands, his own bones, his own death’s-head.
They had not.
He went out the door and across the field, empty handed. There were a lot of them standing around, gathered together, waiting. They expected a good fight; they knew he had something. They had heard about the incident at the fountain.
And there were plenty of police—police with guns and tear gas, creeping across the hills and ridges, between the trees, closer and closer. It was an old story, in this century.
One of the men tossed something at him. It fell in the snow by his feet, and he looked down. It was a rock. He smiled.
“Come on!” one of them called. “Don’t you have any bombs?”
“Throw a bomb! You with the beard! Throw a bomb!”
“Let ‘em have it!”
“Toss a few A Bombs!”
* * * *
They began to laugh. He smiled. He put his hands to his hips. They suddenly turned silent, seeing that he was going to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I don’t have any bombs. You’re mistaken.”
There was a flurry of murmuring.
“I have a gun,” he went on. “A very good one. Made by science even more advanced than your own. But I’m not going to use that, either.”
They were puzzled.
“Why not?” someone called. At the edge of the group an older woman was watching. He felt a sudden shock. He had seen her before. Where?
He remembered. The day at the library. As he had turned the corner he had seen her. She had noticed him and been astounded. At the time, he did not understand why.
Conger grinned. So he would escape death, the man who right now was voluntarily accepting it. They were laughing, laughing at a man who had a gun but didn’t use it. But by a strange twist of science he would appear again, a few months later, after his bones had been buried under the floor of a jail.
And so, in a fashion, he would escape death. He would die, but then, after a period of months, he would live again, briefly, for an afternoon.
An afternoon. Yet long enough for them to see him, to understand that he was still alive. To know that somehow he had returned to life.
And then, finally, he would appear once more, after two hundred years had passed. Two centuries later.
He would be born again, born, as a matter of fact, in a small trading village on Mars. He would grow up, learning to hunt and trade—
A police car came on the edge of the field and stopped. The people retreated a little. Conger raised his hands.
“I have an odd paradox for you,” he said. “Those who take lives will lose their own. Those who kill, will die. But he who gives his own life away will live again!”
They laughed, faintly, nervously. The police were coming out, walking toward him. He smiled. He had said everything he intended to say. It was a good little paradox he had coined. They would puzzle over it, remember it.
Smiling, Conger awaited a death foreordained.
PIPER IN THE WOODS
“Well, Corporal Westerburg,” Doctor Henry Harris said gently, “just why do you think you’re a plant?”
As he spoke, Harris glanced down again at the card on his desk. It was from the Base Commander himself, made out in Cox’s heavy scrawl: Doc, this is the lad I told you about. Talk to him and try to find out how he got this delusion. He’s from the new Garrison, the new check-station on Asteroid Y-3, and we don’t want anything to go wrong there. Especially a silly damn thing like this!
Harris pushed the card aside and stared back up at the youth across the desk from him. The young man seemed ill at ease and appeared to be avoiding answering the question Harris had put to him. Harris frowned. Westerburg was a good-looking chap, actually handsome in his Patrol uniform, a shock of blond hair over one eye. He was tall, almost six feet, a fine healthy lad, just two years out of Training, according to the card. Born in Detroit. Had measles when he was nine. Interested in jet engines, tennis, and girls. Twenty-six years old.
“Well, Corporal Westerburg,” Doctor Harris said again. “Why do you think you’re a plant?”
The Corporal looked up shyly. He cleared his throat. “Sir, I am a plant, I don’t just think so. I’ve been a plant for several days, now.”
“I see.” The Doctor nodded. “You mean that you weren’t always a plant?”
“No, sir. I just became a plant recently.”
“And what were you before you became a plant?”
“Well, sir, I was just like the rest of you.”
There was silence. Doctor Harris took up his pen and scratched a few lines, but nothing of importance came. A plant? And such a healthy-looking lad! Harris removed his steel-rimmed glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. He put them on again and leaned back in his chair. “Care for a cigarette, Corporal?”
“No, sir.”
The Doctor lit one himself, resting his arm on the edge of the chair. “Corporal, you must realize that there are very few men who become plants, especially on such short notice. I have to admit you are the first person who has ever told me such a thing.”
“Yes, sir, I realize it’s quite rare.”
“You can understand why I’m interested, then. When you say you’re a plant, you mean you’re not capable of mobility? Or do you mean you’re a vegetable, as opposed to an animal? Or just what?”
The Corporal looked away. “I can’t tell you any more,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Well, would you mind telling me how you became a plant?”
Corporal Westerburg hesitated. He stared down at the floor, then out the window at the spaceport, then at a fly on the desk. At last he stood up, getting slowly to his feet. “I can’t even tell you that, sir,” he said.
“You can’t? Why not?”
“Because—because I promised not to.”
The room was silent. Doctor Harris rose, too, and they both stood facing each other. Harris frowned, rubbing his jaw. “Corporal, just who did you promise?”
“I can’t even tell you that, sir. I’m sorry.”
The Doctor considered this. At last he went to the door and opened it. “All right, Corporal. You may go now. And thanks for your time.”
“I’m sorry I’m not more helpful.” The Corporal went slowly out and Harris closed the door after him. Then he went across his office to the vidphone. He rang Commander Cox’s letter. A moment later the beefy good-natured face of the Base Commander appeared.
“Cox, this is Harris. I talked to him, all right. All I could get is the statement that he’s a plant. What else is there? What kind of behavior pattern?”
“Well,” Cox said, “the first thing they noticed was that he wouldn’t do any work. The Garrison Chief reported that this Westerburg would wander off outside the Garrison and just sit, all day long. Just sit.”
“In the sun?”
“Yes. Just sit in the sun. Then at nightfall he would come back in. When they asked why he wasn’t working in the jet re
pair building he told them he had to be out in the sun. Then he said—” Cox hesitated.
“Yes? Said what?”
“He said that work was unnatural. That it was a waste of time. That the only worthwhile thing was to sit and contemplate—outside.”
“What then?”
“Then they asked him how he got that idea, and then he revealed to them that he had become a plant.”
“I’m going to have to talk to him again, I can see,” Harris said. “And he’s applied for a permanent discharge from the Patrol? What reason did he give?”
“The same, that he’s a plant now, and has no more interest in being a Patrolman. All he wants to do is sit in the sun. It’s the damnedest thing I ever heard.”
“All right. I think I’ll visit him in his quarters.” Harris looked at his watch. “I’ll go over after dinner.”
“Good luck,” Cox said gloomily. “But who ever heard of a man turning into a plant? We told him it wasn’t possible, but he just smiled at us.”
“I’ll let you know how I make out,” Harris said.
* * * *
Harris walked slowly down the hall. It was after six; the evening meal was over. A dim concept was coming into his mind, but it was much too soon to be sure. He increased his pace, turning right at the end of the hall. Two nurses passed, hurrying by. Westerburg was quartered with a buddy, a man who had been injured in a jet blast and who was now almost recovered. Harris came to the dorm wing and stopped, checking the numbers on the doors.
“Can I help you, sir?” the robot attendant said, gliding up.
“I’m looking for Corporal Westerburg’s room.”
“Three doors to the right.”
Harris went on. Asteroid Y-3 had only recently been garrisoned and staffed. It had become the primary check-point to halt and examine ships entering the system from outer space. The Garrison made sure that no dangerous bacteria, fungus, or what-not arrived to infect the system. A nice asteroid it was, warm, well-watered, with trees and lakes and lots of sunlight. And the most modern Garrison in the nine planets. He shook his head, coming to the third door. He stopped, raising his hand and knocking.
The Philip K. Dick Megapack Page 31