Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992)

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Visions of Fear - Foundations of Fear III (1992) Page 9

by David G. Hartwell (Ed. )


  examination papers; a yes-no-maybe structure could be

  employed, in conjunction with a pre-analysis of the

  pattern of ideological correctness— and incorrectness.

  The matter could be made routine. Probably.

  Faith o f Our Fathers

  67

  Darius Pethel said, “I have with me certain material

  which I would like you to scrutinize, Mr. Chien.” He

  unzipped an unsightly, old-fashioned, plastic briefcase.

  “Two examination essays,” he said as he passed the

  documents to Chien. “This will tell us if you’re qualified.” He then glanced at Tso-pin; their gazes met.

  “I understand,” Pethel said, “that if you are successful in this venture you will be made vice-councilor of the Ministry, and His Greatness the Absolute Benefactor of the People will personally confer Kisterigian’s medal on you.” Both he and Tso-pin smiled in wary

  unison.

  “The Kisterigian medal,” Chien echoed; he accepted

  the examination papers, glanced over them in a show of

  leisurely indifference. But within him his heart vibrated

  in ill-concealed tension. “Why these two? By that I

  mean, what am I looking for, sir?”

  “One of them,” Pethel said, “is the work of a dedicated progressive, a loyal Party member of thoroughly researched conviction. The other is by a young stilyagi

  whom we suspect of holding petit bourgeois imperialist

  degenerate crypto-ideas. It is up to you, sir, to determine

  which is which.”

  Thanks a lot, Chien thought. But, nodding, he read the

  title of the top paper.

  DOCTRINES OF THE ABSOLUTE BENEFACTOR ANTICIPATED

  IN THE POETRY OF BAHA AD-DIN ZUHAYR, OF THIR­

  TEENTH-CENTURY ARABIA.

  Glancing down the initial pages of the essay, Chien

  saw a quatrain familiar to him; it was called “Death”

  and he had known it most of his adult, educated life.

  Once he will miss, twice he will miss-,

  He only chooses one of many hours;

  For him nor deep nor hill there is,

  But all’s one level plain he hunts for flowers.

  68

  Philip K. Dick

  “ Powerful,” Chien said. “This poem.”

  “He makes use of the poem,” Pethel said, observing

  Chien’s lips moving as he reread the quatrain, “to

  indicate the age-old wisdom, displayed by the Absolute

  Benefactor in our current lives, that no individual is safe;

  everyone is mortal, and only the supra-personal, historically essential cause survives. As it should be. Would you agree with him? With this student, I mean? Or— ” Pethel

  paused. “Is he in fact perhaps satirizing the Absolute

  Benefactor’s promulgations?”

  Cagily, Chien said, “Give me a chance to inspect the

  other paper.”

  “You need no further information; decide.”

  Haltingly, Chien said, “I— had never thought of this

  poem that way.” He felt irritable. “Anyhow, it isn’t by

  Baha ad-Din Zuhayr; it’s part of the Thousand and One

  Nights anthology. It is, however, thirteenth century; I

  admit that.” He quickly read over the text of the paper

  accompanying the poem. It appeared to be a routine,

  uninspired rehash of Party cliches, all of them familiar to

  him from birth. The blind, imperialist monster who

  mowed down and snuffed out (mixed metaphor) human

  aspiration, the calculations of the still extant anti-Party

  group in eastern United States . . . He felt dully bored,

  and as uninspired as the student’s paper. We must

  persevere, the paper declared. Wipe out the Pentagon

  remnants in the Catskills, subdue Tennessee and most

  especially the pocket of diehard reaction in the red hills

  of Oklahoma. He sighed.

  “ I think,” Tso-pin said, “we should allow Mr. Chien

  the opportunity of observing this difficult material at his

  leisure.” To Chien he said, “You have permission to take

  them home to your condominium, this evening, and

  adjudge them on your own time.” He bowed, half

  mockingly, half solicitously. In any case, insult or not, he

  had gotten Chien off the hook, and for that Chien was

  grateful.

  Faith o f Our Fathers

  69

  “You are most kind,” he murmured, “to allow me to

  perform this new and highly stimulating labor on my

  own time. Mikoyan, were he alive today, would approve.” You bastard, he said to himself. Meaning both his superior and the Caucasian Pethel. Handing me a hot

  potato like this, and on my own time. Obviously the CP

  USA is in trouble; its indoctrination academies aren’t

  managing to do their job with the notoriously mulish,

  eccentric Yank youths. And you’ve passed that hot

  potato on and on until it reaches me.

  Thanks for nothing, he thought acidly.

  That evening in his small but well-appointed condominium apartment he read over the other of the two examination papers, this one by a Marion Culper, and discovered that it, too, dealt with poetry. Obviously this

  was speciously a poetry class, and he felt ill. It had always

  run against his grain, the use of poetry— of any art— for

  social purposes. Anyhow, comfortable in his special

  spine-straightening, simulated-leather easy chair, he lit a

  Cuesta Rey Number One English Market immense corona cigar and began to read.

  The writer of the paper, Miss Culper, had selected as

  her text a portion of a poem of John Dryden, the

  seventeenth-century English poet, final lines from the

  well-known “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day.”

  . . . So when the last and dreadful hour

  This crumbling pageant shall devour,

  The trumpet shall be heard on high,

  The dead shall live, the living die,

  And Music shall untune the sky.

  Well, that’s a hell of a thing, Chien thought to himself

  bitingly. Dryden, we’re supposed to believe, anticipated

  the fall of capitalism? That’s what he meant by the

  “crumbling pageant”? Christ. He leaned over to take

  70

  Philip K. Dick

  hold of his cigar and found that it had gone out. Groping

  in his pockets for his Japanese-made lighter, he half rose

  to his fe e t. . .

  Tweeeeeee! the TV set at the far end of the living room

  said.

  Aha, Chien said. We’re about to be addressed by the

  Leader. By the Absolute Benefactor of the People, up

  there in Peking where he’s lived for ninety years now; or

  is it one hundred? Or, as we sometimes like to think of

  him, the Ass—

  “May the ten thousand blossoms of abject self-

  assumed poverty flower in your spiritual courtyard,” the

  TV announcer said. With a groan, Chien rose to his feet,

  bowed the mandatory bow of response; each TV set

  came equipped with monitoring devices to narrate to the

  Secpol, the Security Police, whether its owner was bowing and/or watching.

  On the screen a clearly defined visage manifested

  itself, the wide, unlined, healthy features of the one-

  hundred-and-twenty-year-old leader of CP East, ruler of

  many— far too many, Chien reflected. Blah to you, he

  thought, and reseated hims
elf in his simulated-leather

  easy chair, now facing the TV screen.

  “My thoughts,” the Absolute Benefactor said in his

  rich and slow tones, “are on you, my children. And

  especially on Mr. Tung Chien of Hanoi, who faces a

  difficult task ahead, a task to enrich the people of

  Democratic East, plus the American West Coast. We

  must think in unison about this noble, dedicated man

  and the chore which he faces, and I have chosen to take

  several moments of my time to honor him and encourage

  him. Are you listening, Mr. Chien?”

  “Yes, Your Greatness,” Chien said, and pondered to

  himself the odds against the Party Leader singling him

  out this particular evening. The odds caused him to feel

  uncomradely cynicism; it was unconvincing. Probably

  this transmission was being beamed to his apartment

  building alone— or at least this city. It might also be a

  Faith o f Our Fathers

  71

  lip-synch job, done at Hanoi TV, Incorporated. In any

  case he was required to listen and watch— and absorb.

  He did so, from a lifetime of practice. Outwardly he

  appeared to be rigidly attentive. Inwardly he was still

  mulling over the two test papers, wondering which was

  which; where did devout Party enthusiasm end and

  sardonic lampoonery begin? Hard to say . . . which of

  course explained why they had dumped the task in his

  lap.

  Again he groped in his pockets for his lighter— and

  found the small gray envelope which the war-veteran

  peddler had sold him. Gawd, he thought, remembering

  what it had cost. Money down the drain and what did

  this herbal remedy do? Nothing. He turned the packet

  over and saw, on the back, small printed words. Well, he

  thought, and began to unfold the packet with care. The

  words had snared him— as of course they were meant to

  do.

  Failing as a Party member and human? Afraid of

  becoming obsolete and discarded on the ash heap

  of history by

  He read rapidly through the text, ignoring its claims,

  seeking to find out what he had purchased.

  Meanwhile, the Absolute Benefactor droned on.

  Snuff. The package contained snuff. Countless tiny

  black grains, like gunpowder, which sent up an interesting aromatic to tickle his nose. The title of the particular blend was Princes Special, he discovered. And very

  pleasing, he decided. At one time he had taken snuff—

  smoked tobacco for a time having been illegal for reasons

  of health— back during his student days at Peking U; it

  had been the fad, especially the amatory mixes prepared

  in Chungking, made from god knew what. Was this that?

  Almost any aromatic could be added to snuff, from

  essence of orange to pulverized babycrap . . . or so some

  seemed, especially an English mixture called High Dry

  72

  Philip K. Dick

  Toast which had in itself more or less put an end to his

  yearning for nasal, inhaled tobacco.

  On the TV screen the Absolute Benefactor rumbled

  monotonously on as Chien sniffed cautiously at the

  powder, read the claims— it cured everything from

  being late to work to falling in love with a woman of

  dubious political background. Interesting. But typical of

  claims—

  His doorbell rang.

  Rising, he walked to the door, opened it with full

  knowledge of what he would find. There, sure enough,

  stood Mou Kuei, the Building Warden, small and hardeyed and alert to his task; he had his armband and metal helmet on, showing that he meant business. “Mr. Chien,

  comrade Party worker. I received a call from the television authority. You are failing to watch your screen and are instead fiddling with a packet of doubtful content.”

  He produced a clipboard and ballpoint pen. “Two red

  marks, and hithertonow you are summarily ordered to

  repose yourself in a comfortable, stress-free posture

  before your screen and give the Leader your unexcelled

  attention. His words, this evening, are directed particularly to you, sir; to you.”

  “I doubt that,” Chien heard himself say.

  Blinking, Kuei said, “What do you mean?”

  “The Leader rules eight billion comrades. He isn’t

  going to single me out.” He felt wrathful; the punctuality

  of the warden’s reprimand irked him.

  Kuei said, “But I distinctly heard with my own ears.

  You were mentioned.”

  Going over to the TV set, Chien turned the volume up.

  “ But now he’s talking about crop failures in People’s

  India; that’s of no relevance to me.”

  “Whatever the Leader expostulates is relevant.” Mou

  Kuei scratched a mark on his clipboard sheet, bowed

  formally, turned away. “My call to come up here to

  confront you with your slackness originated at Central.

  Obviously they regard your attention as important; I

  Faith o f Our Fathers

  73

  must order you to set in motion your automatic transmission recording circuit and replay the earlier portions of the Leader’s speech.”

  Chien farted. And shut the door.

  Back to the TV set, he said to himself. Where our

  leisure hours are spent. And there lay the two student

  examination papers; he had that weighing him down,

  too. And all on my own time, he thought savagely. The

  hell with them. Up theirs. He strode to the TV set,

  started to shut it off; at once a red warning light winked

  on, informing him that he did not have permission to

  shut off the set— could not in fact end its tirade and

  image even if he unplugged it. Mandatory speeches, he

  thought, will kill us all, bury us; if I could be free of the

  noise of speeches, free of the din of the Party baying as it

  hounds mankind . . .

  There was no known ordinance, however, preventing

  him from taking snuff while he watched the Leader. So,

  opening the small gray packet, he shook out a mound of

  the black granules onto the back of his left hand. He

  then, professionally, raised his hand to his nostrils and

  deeply inhaled, drawing the snuff well up into his sinus

  cavities. Imagine the old superstition, he thought to

  himself. That the sinus cavities are connected to the

  brain, and hence an inhalation of snuff directly affects

  the cerebral cortex. He smiled, seated himself once

  more, fixed his gaze on the TV screen and the gesticulating individual known so utterly to them all.

  The face dwindled away, disappeared. The sound

  ceased. He faced an emptiness, a vacuum. The screen,

  white and blank, confronted him and from the speaker a

  faint hiss sounded.

  The frigging snuff, he said to himself. And inhaled

  greedily at the remainder of the powder on his hand,

  drawing it up avidly into his nose, his sinuses, and, or so

  it felt, into his brain; he plunged into the snuff, absorbing

  it elatedly.

  The screen remained blank and then, by degrees, an

  74

  Philip K. Dick

  image once more formed and established itself. It was

>   not the Leader. Not the Absolute Benefactor of the

  People, in point of fact not a human figure at all.

  He faced a dead mechanical construct, made of solid

  state circuits, of swiveling pseudopodia, lenses and a

  squawk-box. And the box began, in a droning din, to

  harangue him.

  Staring fixedly, he thought, What is this? Reality?

  Hallucination, he thought. The peddler came across

  some of the psychedelic drugs used during the War of

  Liberation— he’s selling the stuff and I’ve taken some,

  taken a whole lot!

  Making his way unsteadily to the vidphone he dialed

  the Secpol station nearest his building. “I wish to report

  a pusher of hallucinogenic drugs,” he said into the

  receiver.

  “Your name, sir, and conapt location?” Efficient, brisk

  and impersonal bureaucrat of the police.

  He gave them the information, then haltingly made it

  back to his simulated-leather easy chair, once again to

  witness the apparition on the TV screen. This is lethal,

  he said to himself. It must be some preparation developed in Washington, D.C., or London— stronger and stranger than the LSD-25 which they dumped so effectively into our reservoirs. And I thought it was going to relieve me of the burden of the Leader’s speeches

  . . this is far worse, this electronic sputtering, swiveling,

  metal and plastic monstrosity yammering away—this is

  terrifying.

  To have to face this the remainder of my life—

  It took ten minutes for the Secpol two-man team to

  come rapping at his door. And by then, in a deteriorating

  set of stages, the familiar image of the Leader had seeped

  back into focus on the screen, had supplanted the

  horrible artificial construct which waved its ’podia and

  squalled on and on. He let the two cops in shakily, led

  them to the table on which he had left the remains of the

  snuff in its packet.

  Faith o f Our Fathers

  75

  “ Psychedelic toxin,” he said thickly. “Of short duration. Absorbed into the blood stream directly, through nasal capillaries. I’ll give you details as to where I got it,

  from whom, all that.” He took a deep shaky breath; the

  presence of the police was comforting.

  Ballpoint pens ready, the two officers waited. And all

  the time, in the background, the Leader rattled out his

  endless speech. As he had done a thousand evenings

 

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