The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories tcsopkd-4

by Philip Kindred Dick

  Glancing up, her eyes bright, Lora said, “It’s the best educational toy you ever brought home, Dad!”

  If There Were No Benny Cemoli

  Scampering across the unplowed field the three boys shouted as they saw the ship: it had landed, all right, just where they expected, and they were the first to reach it.

  “Hey, that’s the biggest I ever saw!” Panting, the first boy halted. “That’s not from Mars; that’s from farther. It’s from all the way out, I know it is.” He became silent and afraid as he saw the size of it. And then looking up into the sky he realized that an armada had arrived, exactly as everyone had expected. “We better go tell,” he said to his companions.

  Back on the ridge, John LeConte stood by his steam-powered chauffeur-driven limousine, impatiently waiting for the boiler to warm. Kids got there first, he said to himself with anger. Whereas I’m supposed to. And the children were ragged; they were merely farm boys.

  “Is the phone working today?” LeConte asked his secretary.

  Glancing at his clipboard, Mr. Fall said, “Yes, sir. Shall I put through a message to Oklahoma City?” He was the skinniest employee ever assigned to LeConte’s office. The man evidently took nothing for himself, was positively uninterested in food. And he was efficient.

  LeConte murmured, “The immigration people ought to hear about this outrage.”

  He sighed. It had all gone wrong. The armada from Proxima Centauri had after ten years arrived and none of the early-warning devices had detected it in advance of its landing. Now Oklahoma City would have to deal with the outsiders here on home ground—a psychological disadvantage which LeConte felt keenly.

  Look at the equipment they’ve got, he thought as he watched the commercial ships of the flotilla begin to lower their cargos. Why, hell, they make us look like provincials. He wished that his official car did not need twenty minutes to warm up; he wished—

  Actually, he wished that CURB did not exist.

  Centaurus Urban Renewal Bureau, a do-gooding body unfortunately vested with enormous inter-system authority. It had been informed of the Misadventure back in 2170 and had started into space like a phototropic organism, sensitive to the mere physical light created by the hydrogen-bomb explosions. But LeConte knew better than that. Actually the governing organizations in the Centaurian system knew many details of the tragedy because they had been in radio contact with other planets of the Sol system. Little of the native forms on Earth had survived. He himself was from Mars; he had headed a relief mission seven years ago, had decided to stay because there were so many opportunities here on Earth, conditions being what they were…

  This is all very difficult, he said to himself as he stood waiting for his steam-powered car to warm. We got here first, but CURB does outrank us; we must face that awkward fact. In my opinion, we’ve done a good job of rebuilding. Of course, it isn ‘t like it was before … but ten years is not long. Give us another twenty and we’ll have the trains running again. And our recent road-building bonds sold quite successfully, in fact were oversubscribed.

  “Call for you, sir, from Oklahoma City,” Mr. Fall said, holding out the receiver of the portable field-phone.

  “Ultimate Representative in the Field John LeConte, here,” LeConte said into it loudly. “Go ahead; I say go ahead.”

  “This is Party Headquarters,” the dry official voice at the other end came faintly, mixed with static, in his ear. “We’ve received reports from dozens of alert citizens in Western Oklahoma and Texas of an immense—”

  “It’s here,” LeConte said. “I can see it. I’m just about ready to go out and confer with its ranking members, and I’ll file a full report at the usual time. So it wasn’t necessary for you to check up on me.” He felt irritable.

  “Is the armada heavily armed?”

  “Naw,” LeConte said. “It appears to be comprised of bureaucrats and trade officials and commercial carriers. In other words, vultures.”

  The Party desk-man said, “Well, go and make certain they understand that their presence here is resented by the native population as well as the Relief of War-torn Areas Administrating Council. Tell them that the legislature will be calling to pass a special bill expressing indignation at this intrusion into domestic matters by an inter-system body.”

  “I know, I know,” LeConte said. “It’s all been decided; I know.”

  His chauffeur called to him, “Sir, your car is ready now.”

  The Party desk-man concluded, “Make certain they understand that you can’t negotiate with them; you have no power to admit them to Earth. Only the Council can do that and of course it’s adamantly against that.”

  LeConte hung up the phone and hurried to his car.

  Despite the opposition of the local authorities, Peter Hood of CURB decided to locate his headquarters in the ruins of the old Terran capital, New York City. This would lend prestige to the CURBmen as they gradually widened the circle of the organization’s influence. At last, of course, the circle would embrace the planet. But that would take decades.

  As he walked through the ruins of what had once been a major train yard, Peter Hood thought to himself that when the task was done he himself would have long been retired. Not much remained of the pre-tragedy culture here. The local authorities—the political nonentities who had flocked in from Mars and Venus, as the neighboring planets were called—had done little. And yet he admired their efforts.

  To the members of his staff walking directly behind him he said, “You know, they have done the hard part for us. We ought to be grateful. It is not easy to come into a totally destroyed area, as they’ve done.”

  His man Fletcher observed, “They got back a good return.”

  Hood said, “Motive is not important. They have achieved results.” He was thinking of the official who had met them in his steam car; it had been solemn and formal, carrying complicated trappings. When these locals had first arrived on the scene years ago they had not been greeted, except perhaps by radiation-seared, blackened survivors who had stumbled out of cellars and gaped sightlessly. He shivered.

  Coming up to him, a CURBman of minor rank saluted and said, “I think we’ve managed to locate an undamaged structure in which your staff could be housed for the time being. It’s underground.” He looked embarrassed. “Not what we had hoped for. We’d have to displace the locals to get anything attractive.”

  “I don’t object,” Hood said. “A basement will do.”

  “The structure,” the minor CURBman said, “was once a great homeostatic newspaper, the New York Times. It printed itself directly below us. At least, according to the maps. We haven’t located the newspaper yet; it was customary for the homeopapes to be buried a mile or so down. As yet we don’t know how much of this one survived.”

  “But it would be valuable,” Hood agreed.

  “Yes,” the CURBman said. “Its outlets are scattered all over the planet; it must have had a thousand different editions which it put out daily. How many outlets function—” He broke off. “It’s hard to believe that the local politicos made no efforts to repair any of the ten or eleven world-wide homeopapes, but that seems to be the case.”

  “Odd,” Hood said. Surely it would have eased their task. The post-tragedy job of reuniting people into a common culture depended on newspapers, ionization in the atmosphere making radio and TV reception difficult if not impossible. “This makes me instantly suspicious,” he said, turning to his staff. “Are they perhaps not trying to rebuild after all? Is their work merely a pretense?”

  It was his own wife Joan who spoke up. “They may simply have lacked the ability to place the homeopapes on an operational basis.”

  Give them the benefit of the doubt, Hood thought. You ‘re right.

  “So the last edition of the Times” Fletcher said, “was put on the lines the day the Misadventure occurred. And the entire network of newspaper communication and news-creation had been idle since. I can’t respect these politicos; it shows they’re igno
rant of the basics of a culture. By reviving the homeopapes we can do more to re-establish the pre-tragedy culture than they’ve done in ten thousand pitiful projects.” His tone was scornful.

  Hood said, “You may misunderstand, but let it go. Let’s hope that the cephalon of the pape is undamaged. We couldn’t possibly replace it.” Ahead he saw the yawning entrance which the CURBmen crews had cleared. This was to be his first move, here on the ruined planet, restoring this immense self-contained entity to its former authority. Once it had resumed its activity he would be freed for other tasks; the homeopape would take some of the burden from him.

  A workman, still clearing debris away, muttered, “Jeez, I never saw so many layers of junk. You’d think they deliberately bottled it up down here.” In his hands, the suction furnace which he operated glowed and pounded as it absorbed material, converting it to energy, leaving an increasingly enlarged opening.

  “I’d like a report as soon as possible as to its condition,” Hood said to the team of engineers who stood waiting to descend into the opening. “How long it will take to revive it, how much—” He broke off.

  Two men in black uniforms had arrived. Police, from the Security ship. One, he saw, was Otto Dietrich, the ranking investigator accompanying the armada from Centaurus, and he felt tense automatically; it was a reflex for all of them—he saw the engineers and the workmen cease momentarily and then, more slowly, resume their work.

  “Yes,” he said to Dietrich. “Glad to see you. Let’s go off to this side room and talk there.” He knew beyond a doubt what the investigator wanted; he had been expecting him.

  Dietrich said, “I won’t take up too much of your time, Hood. I know you’re quite busy. What is this, here?” He glanced about curiously, his scrubbed, round, alert face eager.

  In a small side room, converted to a temporary office, Hood faced the two policemen. “I am opposed to prosecution,” he said quietly. “It’s been too long. Let them go.”

  Dietrich, tugging thoughtfully at his ear, said, “But war crimes are war crimes, even four decades later. Anyhow, what argument can there be? We’re required by law to prosecute. Somebody started the war. They may well hold positions of responsibility now, but that hardly matters.”

  “How many police troops have you landed?” Hood asked.

  “Two hundred.”

  “Then you’re ready to go to work.”

  “We’re ready to make inquiries. Sequester pertinent documents and initiate litigation in the local courts. We’re prepared to enforce cooperation, if that’s what you mean. Various experienced personnel have been distributed to key points.” Dietrich eyed him. “All this is necessary; I don’t see the problem. Did you intend to protect the guilty parties—make use of their so-called abilities on your staff?”

  “No,” Hood said evenly.

  Dietrich said, “Nearly eighty million people died in the Misfortune. Can you forget that? Or is it that since they were merely local people, not known to us personally—”

  “It’s not that,” Hood said. He knew it was hopeless; he could not communicate with the police mentality. “I’ve already stated my objections. I feel it serves no purpose at this late date to have trials and hangings. Don’t request use of my staff in this; I’ll refuse on the grounds that I can spare no one, not even a janitor. Do I make myself clear?”

  “You idealists,” Dietrich sighed. “This is strictly a noble task confronting us… to rebuild, correct? What you don’t or won’t see is that these people will start it all over again, one day, unless we take steps now. We owe it to future generations. To be harsh now is the most humane method, in the long run. Tell me, Hood. What is this site? What are you resurrecting here with such vigor?”

  “The New York Times,” Hood said.

  “It has, I assume, a morgue? We can consult its backlog of information? That would prove valuable in building up our cases.”

  Hood said, “I can’t deny you access to material we uncover.”

  Smiling, Dietrich said, “A day by day account of the political events leading up to the war would prove quite interesting. Who, for instance, held supreme power in the United States at the time of the Misfortune? No one we’ve talked to so far seems to remember.” His smile increased.

  Early the next morning the report from the corps of engineers reached Hood in his temporary office. The power supply of the newspaper had been totally destroyed. But the cephalon, the governing brain-structure which guided and oriented the homeostatic system, appeared to be intact. If a ship were brought close by, perhaps its power supply could be integrated into the newspaper’s lines. Thereupon much more would be known.

  “In other words,” Fletcher said to Hood, as they sat with Joan eating breakfast, “it may come on and it may not. Very pragmatic. You hook it up and if it works you’ve done your job. What if it doesn’t? Do the engineers intend to give up at that point?”

  Examining his cup, Hood said, “This tastes like authentic coffee.” He pondered. “Tell them to bring a ship in and start the homeopape up. And if it begins to print, bring me the edition at once.” He sipped his coffee.

  An hour later a ship of the line had landed in the vicinity and its power source had been tapped for insertion into the homeopape. The conduits were placed, the circuits cautiously closed.

  Seated in his office, Peter Hood heard far underground a low rumble, a halting, uncertain stirring. They had been successful. The newspaper was returning to life.

  The edition, when it was laid on his desk by a bustling CURBman, surprised him by its accuracy. Even in its dormant state, the newspaper had somehow managed not to fall behind events. Its receptors had kept going.

  Curb Lands, Trip Decade Long, Plans Central Administration

  Ten years after the Misfortune of a nuclear holocaust, the inter-system rehabilitation agency, CURB, has made its historic appearance on Earth’s surface, landing from a veritable armada of craft—a sight which witnesses described as “overpowering both in scope and in significance.” CURBman Peter Hood, named top co-ordinator by Centaurian authorities, immediately set up headquarters in the ruins of New York City and conferred with aides, declaring that he had come “not to punish the guilty but to re-establish the planet-wide culture by every means available, and to restore—

  It was uncanny, Hood thought as he read the lead article. The varied news-gathering services of the homeopape had reached into his own life, had digested and then inserted into the lead article even the discussion between himself and Otto Dietrich. The newspaper was—had been—doing its job. Nothing of news-interest escaped it, even a discreet conversation carried on with no outsiders as witnesses. He would have to be careful.

  Sure enough, another item, ominous in tone, dealt with the arrival of the black jacks, the police.

  Security Agency Vows “War Criminals” Target

  Captain Otto Dietrich, supreme police investigator arriving with the CURB armada from Proxima Centauri, said today that those responsible for the Misfortune of a decade ago “would have to pay for their crimes” before the bar of Centaurian justice. Two hundred black-uniformed police, it was learned by the Times, have already begun exploratory activities designed to—

  The newspaper was warning Earth about Dietrich, and Hood could not help feeling grim relish. The Times had not been set up to serve merely the occupying hierarchy. It served everyone, including those Dietrich intended to try. Each step of the police activity would no doubt be reported in full detail. Dietrich, who liked to work in anonymity, would not enjoy this. But the authority to maintain the newspaper belonged to Hood.

  And he did not intend to shut it off.

  One item on the first page of the paper attracted his further notice; he read it, frowning and a little uneasy.

  Cemoli Backers Riot in Upstate New York

  Supporters of Benny Cemoli, gathered in the familiar tent cities associated with the colorful political figure, clashed with local citizens armed with hammers, shovels, and boards, both
sides claiming victory in the two-hour melee which left twenty injured and a dozen hospitalized in hastily-erected first aid stations. Cemoli, garbed as always in his toga-style red robes, visited the injured, evidently in good spirits, joking and telling his supporters that “it won’t be long now” an evident reference to the organization’s boast that it would march on New York City in the near future to establish what Cemoli deems “social justice and true equality for the first time in world history.” It should be recalled that prior to his imprisonment at San Quentin—

  Flipping a switch on his intercom system, Hood said, “Fletcher, check into activities up in the north of the county. Find out about some sort of a political mob gathering there.”

  Fletcher’s voice came back. “I have a copy of the Times, too, sir. I see the item about this Cemoli agitator. There’s a ship on the way up there right now; should have a report within ten minutes.” Fletcher paused. “Do you think—it’ll be necessary to bring in any of Dietrich’s people?”

  “Let’s hope not,” Hood said shortly.

  Half an hour later the CURB ship, through Fletcher, made its report.

  Puzzled, Hood asked that it be repeated. But there was no mistake. The CURB field team had investigated thoroughly. They had found no sign whatsoever of any tent city or any group gathering. And citizens in the area whom they had interrogated had never heard of anyone named “Cemoli.” And there was no sign of any scuffle having taken place, no first aid stations, no injured persons. Only the peaceful, semi-rural countryside.

  Baffled, Hood read the item in the Times once more. There it was, in black and white, on the front page, along with the news about the landing of the CURB armada. What did it mean?