"Let me back," he called to his sister in panic. "Look what you did, you put me into something wrong." You did it on purpose, he said to himself as he moved. He moved on and on, searching for her.
If I could reach out, he thought. Reach—upward. But he had nothing to reach with, no limbs of any sort. What am I now that I'm out again? he asked himself as he tried to reach up. What do they call those things up there that shine? Those lights in the sky … can I see them without having eyes? No, he thought; I can't.
He moved on; raising himself now and then as high as possible and then sinking back, once more to crawl, to do the one thing possible for him in his born, outside life.
In the sky, Walt Dangerfield moved, in his satellite, although he sat resting with his head in his hands. The pain inside him had grown, changed, absorbed him until, as so many times before, he could imagine nothing else.
How long can I keep going? he asked himself. How long will I live?
There was no one to answer.
Edie Keller, with a delicious shiver of exultation, watched the angleworm crawling slowly across the ground and knew with certitude that her brother was in it.
For inside her, down in her stomach, the mentality of the worm now resided; she heard its monotonous voice. "Boom, boom, boom," it went, in echo of its own nondescript biological processes.
"Get out of me, worm," she giggled. What did the worm think about its new existence? Was it as dumbfounded as Bill probably was? I have to keep my eye on him, she realized, meaning the creature wriggling across the ground. For he might get lost. "Bill," she said, bending over him, "you look funny. You're all red and long; did you know that?" And then she thought, What I should have done was put him in the body of another human being. Why didn't I do that? Then it would be like it ought to be; I would have a real brother, outside of me, who I could play with.
But on the other hand she would have a strange, new person inside her. And that did not sound like much fun.
Who would do? she asked herself. One of the kids at school? An adult? Mr. Barnes, my teacher, maybe. Or—
Hoppy Harrington. Who is afraid of Bill anyhow.
"Bill," she said, kneeling down and picking up the angleworm; she held it in the palm of her hand. "Wait until you hear my plan." She held the worm against her side, where the hard lump within lay. "Get back inside now. You don't want to be a worm anyhow; it's no fun."
Her brother's voice once more came to her. "You—I hate you, I'll never forgive you. You put me in a blind thing with no legs or nothing! All I could do was drag myself around!"
"I know," she said, rocking back and forth, cupping the now-useless worm in her hand still. "Listen, did you hear me? You want to do that, Bill, what I said? Shall I get near Hoppy Harrington? You'd have eyes and ears; you'd be a real outside person."
"It scares me."
"But I want to," Edie said, rocking back and forth. "We're going to, Bill; we're going to give you eyes and ears—now."
There was no answer from Bill; he had turned his thoughts away from her and her world, into the regions which only he could reach. Talking to those old crummy, sticky dead, Edie said to herself. Those empty poo-poo dead that never had any fun or nothing.
It won't do you any good, Bill, she thought. Because I've decided.
Hurrying down the path in her robe and slippers, through the night darkness, Edie Keller groped her way toward Hoppy Harrington's house.
"If you're going to do it you have to hurry," Bill cried, from deep within her. "He knows about us—they're telling me, the dead are. They say we're in danger. If we can get close enough to him I can do an imitation of someone dead that'll scare him, because he's afraid of dead people. That's because to him the dead are like fathers, lots of fathers, and—"
"Be quiet," Edie said. "Let me think." In the darkness she had gotten mixed up. She could not find the path through the oak forest, now, and she halted, breathing deeply, trying to orient herself by the dull gleam of the partial moon overhead.
It's to the left, she thought. Down a hill. I must not fall; he'd hear the noise, he can hear a long way, almost everything. Step by step she descended, holding her breath.
"I've got a good imitation ready," Bill was mumbling; he would not be quiet. "When I get near him I switch with someone dead, and you won't like that because it's—sort of squishy, but it's just for a few minutes and then they can talk to him direct, from inside you. Is that—"
"Shut up," Edie said desperately. They were now above Hoppy's house; she saw the lights below. "Please, Bill, please."
"But I have to explain to you," Bill went on. "When I—"
He stopped. Inside her there was nothing. She was empty.
"Bill," she said.
He had gone.
Before her eyes, in the dull moonlight, something she had never seen before bobbed. It rose, jiggled, its long pale hair streaming behind it like a tail; it rose until it hung directly before her face. It had tiny, dead eyes and a gaping mouth, it was nothing but a little hard round head, like a baseball. From its mouth came a squeak, and then it fluttered upward once more, released. She watched it as it gained more and more height, rising above the trees in a swimming motion, ascending in the unfamiliar atmosphere which he had never known before.
"Bill," she said, "Hoppy took you out of me. Hoppy put you outside." And you are leaving, she realized; Hoppy is making you go. "Come back," she said, but it didn't matter because he could not live outside of her. She knew that. Doctor Stockstill had said that. He could not be born, and Hoppy had heard him and made him born, knowing that he would die.
You won't get to do your imitation, she realized. I told you to be quiet and you wouldn't. Straining, she saw—or thought she saw—the hard little object with the streamers of hair, high now above her … and then it disappeared, silently.
She was alone.
Why go on now? It was over. She turned, walked back up the hillside, her head lowered, eyes shut, feeling her way. Back to her house, her bed. Inside she felt raw; she felt the tearing loose. If you only could have been quiet, she thought. He would not have heard you. I told you so.
Floating in the atmosphere, Bill Keller saw a little, heard a little, felt the trees and the animals alive and moving among them. He felt the pressure at work on him, lifting him up, but he remembered his imitation and he said it. His voice came out tiny in the cold air; then his ears picked it up and he exclaimed.
"We have been taught a terrible lesson for our folly," he squeaked, and his voice echoed in his ears, delighting him.
The pressure on him let go; he bobbed up, swimming happily, and then he dove. Down and down he went and just before he touched the ground he went sideways until, guided by the living presence within, he hung suspended above Hoppy Harrington's house.
"This is God's way!" he shouted in his thin, tiny voice. "We can see by this awful example that it is time to call a halt to high-altitude nuclear testing. I want all of you to write letters to President Kennedy!" He did not know who President Kennedy was. A living person, perhaps. He looked around for him but he did not see him; he saw oak forests of animals, he saw a bird with noiseless wings that drifted, huge-beaked, eyes staring. Bill squeaked in fright as the noiseless, brown-feathered bird glided his way.
The bird made a dreadful sound, of greed and the desire to rend.
"All of you," Bill cried, fleeing through the dark, chill air. "You must write letters in protest!"
The glittering eyes of the bird followed behind him as he and it glided above the trees, in the dim moonlight.
The owl reached him. And crunched him, in a single instant.
Once more he was within. He could no longer see or hear; it had been for a short time and now it was over.
The owl, hooting, flew on.
Bill Keller said to the owl, "Can you hear me?"
Maybe it could; maybe not. It was only an owl; it did not have any sense, as Edie had. Can I live inside you? he asked it, hidden away in here where
no one knows … you have your flights that you make, your passes. With him, in the owl, were the bodies of mice and a thing that stirred and scratched, big enough to keep on wanting to live.
Lower, he told the owl. He saw, by means of the owl, the oaks; he saw clearly, as if everything were full of light. Millions of individual objects lay immobile and then he spied one that crept—it was alive and the owl turned that way. The creeping thing, suspecting nothing, hearing no sound, wandered on, out into the open.
An instant later it had been swallowed. The owl flew on.
Good, he thought. And, is there more? This goes on all night, again and again, and then there is bathing when it rains, and the long, deep sleeps. Are they the best part? They are.
He said, "Fergesson don't allow his employees to drink; it's against his religion, isn't it?" And then he said, "Hoppy, what's the light from? Is it God? You know, like in the Bible. I mean, is it true?"
The owl hooted.
A thousand dead things within him yammered for attention. He listened, repeated, picked among them. "You dirty little freak," he said. "Now you listen. Stay down here; we're below street-level, the bomb won't get us. People upstairs, they're going to die. Down here you clear. Space. For them."
Frightened, the owl flapped; it rose higher, trying to evade him. But he continued, sorting and picking and listening on.
"Stay down here," he repeated. Again the lights of Hoppy's house came into view; the owl had circled, returned to it, unable to get away. He made it stay where he wanted it. He brought it closer and closer in its passes to Hoppy. "You moronic jackass," he said. "Stay where you are."
The owl, with a furious effort, performed its regular technique; it coughed him up and he plummeted to the ground, trying to catch the currents of air. He crashed among humus and plant-growth; he rolled, giving little squeaks until finally he came to rest in a hollow.
Released, the owl soared off and disappeared.
"Let man's compassion be witness to this," he said as he lay in the hollow; he spoke in the minister's voice from long ago, addressing the congregation of which Hoppy and his father had been a part. "It is ourselves who have done this; we see here only the results of mankind's own folly."
Lacking the owl eyes he saw only vaguely; the immaculate illumination seemed to be gone and all that remained were several nearby shapes. They were trees.
He saw, too, the form of Hoppy's house outlined against the dim night sky. It was not far off.
"Let me in," Bill said, moving his mouth. He rolled about in the hollow; he thrashed until the leaves stirred. "I want to come in."
An animal, hearing him, moved farther off, warily.
"In, in, in," Bill said. "I can't stay out here long; I'll die. Edie, where are you?" He did not feel her nearby; he felt only the presence of the phocomelus within the house.
As best he could he rolled that way.
Early in the morning, Doctor Stockstill arrived at Hoppy Harrington's house to make use of the transmitter in reaching the sick man in the sky, Walter Dangerfield. The transmitter, he noticed, was on, and so were lights here and there; puzzled, he knocked on the door.
The door opened and there sat Hoppy Harrington in the center of his phocomobile. Hoppy regarded him in an odd, cautious, defensive way.
"I want to make another try," Stockstill said, knowing how hopeless it was but wanting to go ahead anyhow. "Is it okay?"
"Yes sir," Hoppy said.
"Is Dangerfield still alive?"
"Yes sir. I'd know if he was dead." Hoppy wheeled aside to admit him. "He must still be up there."
"What's happened?" Stockstill said. "Have you been up all night?"
"Yes," Hoppy said. "Learning to work things." He wheeled the phocomobile about. "It's hard," he said, apparently preoccupied. Now the 'mobile bumped into the end of a table. "I hit that by mistake," Hoppy said. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to."
Stockstill said, "You seem different."
"I'm Bill Keller," the phocomelus said. "Not Hoppy Harrington." With his right manual extensor he pointed. "There's Hoppy; that's him, from now on."
In the corner lay a shriveled dough-like object several inches long; its mouth gaped in congealed emptiness. It had a human quality to it, and Stockstill went over to pick it up.
"That was me," the phocomelus said. "But I got close enough last night to switch. He fought a lot, but he was afraid, so I won. I kept doing one imitation after another. The minister-one got him."
Stockstill, holding the wizened little creature, said nothing.
"Do you know how to work the transmitter?" the phocomelus asked, presently. "Because I don't. I tried but I can't. I got the lights to work; they turn on and off. I practiced that all night." To demonstrate, he rolled his 'mobile to the wall, where with his manual extensor he snapped the light switch up and down.
After a time Stockstill said, looking down at the dead, tiny form he held in his hand, "I knew it wouldn't survive."
"It did for a while," the phocomelus said. "For around an hour; that's pretty good, isn't it? Part of that time it was in an owl; I don't know if that counts."
"I—better get to work trying to contact Dangerfield," Stockstill said finally. "He may die any time."
"Yes," the phocomelus said, nodding. "Want me to take that?" He held out an extensor and Stockstill handed him the homunculus. "That owl ate me," the phoce said. "I didn't like that, but it sure had good eyes; I liked that part, using its eyes."
"Yes," Stockstill said, reflexively. "Owls have tremendously good eyesight. That must have been quite an experience." He seated himself at the transmitter. "What are you going to do now?" he asked.
The phoce said, "I have to get used to this body; it's heavy. I feel gravity… I'm used to just floating about. You know what? I think these extensors are swell. I can do a lot with them already." The extensors whipped about, touched a picture on the wall, flicked in the direction of the transmitter. "I have to go find Edie," the phoce said. "I want to tell her I'm okay; she probably thinks I died."
Turning on the microphone, Stockstill prepared to contact the satellite overhead. "Walt Dangerfield," he said, "this is Doctor Stockstill in West Marin. Can you hear me? If you can, give me an answer." He paused, then repeated what he had said.
"Can I go?" Bill Keller asked. "Can I look for Edie now?"
"Yes," Stockstill said, rubbing his forehead; he drew his faculties together and said, "You'll be careful, what you do … you may not be able to switch again."
"I don't want to switch again," Bill said. "This is fine, because for the first time there's no one in here but me." The thin phoce-face broke into a smile. "I'm not just part of someone else."
Stockstill pressed the mike button once more. "Walt Dangerfield," he repeated. "Can you hear me?" Is it hopeless? he wondered. Is it worth keeping on?
The phoce, rolling about the room on his 'mobile, like a great trapped beetle, said, "Can I go to school now that I'm out?"
"Yes," Stockstill murmured.
"But I know a lot of things already," Bill said. "From listening with Edie when she was in school; I like Mr. Barnes, don't you? He's a very good teacher… I'm going to like being a pupil in his class." The phoce added, "I wonder what my mother will say?"
Jarred, Stockstill said, "What?" And then he realized who was meant. Bonny Keller. Yes, he thought, it will be interesting to see what Bonny says. This will be repayment in full for her many, many affairs … for her years of love-making with one man after another.
Again he pressed the mike button. And tried once more.
To Bonny Keller, Mr. Barnes said, "I had a talk with your daughter after school today. And I got the distinct impression that she knows about us."
"Oh Christ, how could she?" Bonny said. Groaning, she sat up; she rearranged her clothes, buttoned her blouse back up. What a contrast this man was to Andrew Gill, who always made love to her right out in the open, in broad daylight, along the oak-lined roads of West Marin, where anyone and anyt
hing might go past. Gill had seized her each time as he had the first time—yanking her into it, not babbling or quaking or mumbling … maybe I ought to go back to him, she thought.
Maybe, she thought, I ought to leave them all, Barnes and George and that nutty daughter of mine; I ought to go live with Gill openly, defy the community and be happy for a change.
"Well, if we're not going to make love," she said to Barnes, "then let's walk down to the Forresters' Hall and listen to the afternoon pass of the satellite."
Barnes, pleased, said, "Maybe we can find some edible mushrooms on the way."
"Are you serious?" Bonny said.
"Of course."
"You fruit," she said, shaking her head. "You poor fruit. Why did you come to West Marin from Oregon in the first place? Just to teach little kids and stroll around picking mushrooms?"
"It's not such a bad life," Barnes said. "It's better than any I've ever known before, even before the war. And—I also have you."
Gloomily, Bonny Keller rose to her feet; hands thrust deep in her coat pockets she plodded down the road. Barnes trailed along behind her, trying to keep up with her strides.
"I'm going to remain here in West Marin," Barnes said. "This is the end of my travels." Puffing, he added, "Despite my experience with your daughter today—"
"You had no experience," Bonny said. "It was just your guilty conscience catching up with you. Let's hurry—I want to hear Dangerfield; at least when he talks it's fun to listen."
Behind her, Mr. Barnes found a mushroom; he had stopped to bend down. "It's a chanterelle!" he exclaimed. "Savory and edible—" He picked it, close to the ground, and then began to search for another. "I'll make you and George a stew," he informed her as he found another.
Waiting for him to finish, Bonny lit a special deluxe Gold Label cigarette of Andrew Gill's manufacture, sighed, wandered a few steps along the grass-infested oak-lined country road.
YOUR APPOINTMENT WILL BE YESTERDAY
SUNLIGHT ASCENDED and a penetrating mechanical voice declared, "All right, Lehrer. Time to get up and show 'em who you are and what you can do. Big man, that Niehls Lehrer; everybody acknowledges it—I hear them talking. Big man, big talent, big job. Much admired by the public at large. You awake now?"
The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 4: The Minority Report Page 218