Our Friends From Frolix 8

by Philip K. Dick

  ‘Assuming the cat is sincere,’ Morgo said, ‘rather than trying to cadge extra food.’

  ‘You think a cat can be a hypocrite?’ Provoni asked. ‘I’ve never heard an insinuation of insincerity directed toward cats. Actually, much of the criticism comes from their brutal honesty; if they don’t like a person then shit, they’re off to someone else.’

  ‘I think,’ Morgo said, ‘when we get to Terra I would like to have a dog.’

  ‘A dog! After my meditation on the nature of cats – after all the wealth of material about dearly-loved cats from my past; I still think of one old tom named Asherbanopol, but we called him Ralf. “Asherbanopol” is Egyptian.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Frolixan said. ‘You still moan deep in your heart for Asherbanopol. But when you die, as in the Mark Twain story—’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said morosely. ‘They’ll all be there, a row of them on each side of the road, waiting for me. An animal refuses to pass into Paradise without its master. They wait year after year.’

  ‘And you fervently believe this.’

  ‘“Believe it?” I know it’s true; God is alive; that carcass they found in deep space back a few years ago, that wasn’t God. You don’t find God under such circumstances, that’s Medieval thought. Do you know where you find the Holy Spirit? It’s not out in space – hell, it created space. It’s here.’ He pointed to his chest. ‘I – I mean, we – have a portion of the Holy Spirit within us. Look at your decision to come and give us help – you get nothing from it, perhaps injury, or some kind of destruction that the military has but which we haven’t heard about.’

  ‘I receive something from coming to your planet,’ Morgo said. ‘I get to pick up and hold little life forms: cats, a dog, a leaf, a snail, a chipmunk. Do you know – do you understand – that on Frolix 8 all life forms except ourselves were sterilized, hence they long ago disappeared… although I’ve seen recordings of them, three dimensional recreations that seem absolutely real. Wired directly to the ruling ganglia of our central nervous systems.’

  Fear overcame Thors Provoni.

  ‘That bothers you,’ Morgo said. ‘That we would do that. We ourselves; we were growing, dividing, growing. We needed to urbanize every inch of our planet; the animals would starve, and we preferred using a sterilizing gas, utterly painless. They could not have lived in our world with us.’

  ‘Your population has tapered off, now, has it?’ Nick asked. The fear still lay inside him, like a coiled snake. Waiting to unwind, to show its poisonous fangs.

  Morgo said, ‘We always could use more room.’

  Like Earth, Provoni thought.

  ‘No, there’s already a dominant sentient species, there. We are forbidden by the civil wing of our ruling circles to—’ Morgo hesitated.

  ‘Military,’ Provoni said, in wonder.

  ‘I am a commando. That’s what caused them to pick me to return to Sol 3 with you. I have a reputation for being able to solve disputes by mixing reasoning and force. The threat of the force makes them listen; the knowledge, my knowledge, points out the way by which the best society possible can succeed.’

  ‘You’ve done this before?’ Obviously it had.

  ‘I am over a million years old,’ Morgo said. ‘I, backed by the contingency of force, have solved wars so vast, with numbers so great, as to be impossible for you to imagine. I have unscrambled politico-economic problems, sometimes by introducing new machinery or anyhow theoretical papers by which such devices could be achieved. And then I have passed by, and the rest is up to them.’

  ‘Do you intervene only if called on?’ Provoni said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, in essence, you help only civilizations which have been able to produce trans-stellar drives. To get their messenger there… where at last you notice him. But some Medieval society, with longbows and pig-helmets—’

  ‘Our theory,’ Morgo said, ‘as to this, is interesting. At the longbow level, in fact at the cannon level, and airships, water ships, bombs… it is none of our business. We don’t want it to be, because our theory tells us that they cannot destroy their race or their planet. But when hydrogen bombs are built, and technocracy has enabled them to build interstellar—’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Provoni said flatly.

  ‘Why?’ The Frolixan explored his brain, deftly, but with his customary reverence. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘You know that they create hydrogen bombs long before they develop an inter-stellar drive. You are right.’ It paused. ‘All right, then. We allow ourselves to get involved only when approached by a ship capable of inter-stellar flight. Because at that point the civilization is potentially dangerous to us. They have found us. A response of some sort on our part is indicated… as, for instance, in your world’s history, when Admiral Perry breached the wall surrounding Japan – and the entire country had to modernize within a matter of a few years. Bear this in mind: we could have chosen merely to kill every inter-stellar spaceman, instead of asking what we could add to help stabilize their culture. You would be incredulous if you knew how many cultures are in the grip of wars and power struggles and tyrannies… some far advanced over yours. But you supplied us with our criterion: you reached us. So, Mr. Provoni, I’m here.’

  Provoni said, ‘I don’t like that about the animals being exterminated.’ He was thinking about the six billion Old Man population. Would they be treated like that? he wondered. Will they treat us all like that, New Man, Unusual, Old Man, Under Man – will they snuff us and inherit our planet with all its works?

  Morgo said, ‘Mr. Provoni, let me make two points which should serve to quiet your turmoil. First: we have known about your civilization for centuries. Our ships have entered and skimmed around in your atmosphere back to the time of whaling boats. We could have taken over any time, if we so desired; don’t you think it would have been easier to defeat the “thin red line”, the Redcoats, than to face cobalt and hydrogen tactical missiles as we would have to – are doing – now? I’ve been listening. You have several picket ships loitering in the area near the point at which Sol’s gravitational field begins to affect us.’

  ‘And second?’

  ‘We will steal.’

  ‘“Steal”!’ Provoni was amazed. ‘Steal what?’

  ‘Countless diversions of yours: vacuum cleaners, typewriters, 3-D video systems, twenty-year batteries, computers – in exchange for ending the tyranny we will hang about a while, obtaining working models, if possible, or descriptions of every conceivable plant, tree, boat, power tool; you name it.’

  ‘But you’re technologically advanced over us.’

  Morgo said in a pleased voice, ‘It doesn’t matter. Each civilization, on each planet, develops unique, idiosyncratic tools, manners, theories, toys, acid-resistant tanks, merry-go-rounds. Let me ask you this: suppose you could be transported back to England in the eighteenth century. And you could take back with you whatever pleased you. Wouldn’t you cart away a good deal? Paintings alone – but I see that you understand.’

  ‘We’re quaint!’ Provoni said furiously.

  ‘Yes, that expresses it. And quaintness is one of the great use-constituents in the universe, Mr. Provoni. It is a subdivision of the principle of uniqueness, which your own Mr. Bernhad explained in his “Theory of Acausality Measured by Two Axes.” Uniqueness is unique, but there are what Bernhad called “quasi-uniquenesses”, of which many—’

  ‘I ghosted Bernhad’s theory for him,’ Provoni said. ‘I was a smart-assed young college kid, one of Bernhad’s teaching assistants. We prepared all the data, the citations, everything – had them published in Nature – with only Bernhad’s name on it In 2103 I was eighteen. Now I’m one hundred and five.’ He grimaced. ‘An old man in a different sense. But I’m still alive and active; I can still piss and stink and eat and sleep and screw. Anyhow, you read about people living to be two hundred years old, born back around 1985, when the aging virus was isolated, and anti-geretelic compounds were mainlined by forty percent of the po
pulation.’

  He thought, then, about the animals, and about Earth’s six billion who were going nowhere, except, perhaps, the absolutely gigantic relocation camps on Luna with their opaque tank sides; the prisoners were not even allowed to see the landscape around them. Must be twelve to twenty million Old Men in those camps, he pondered. An army. Where’ll they go on Earth? Twenty million? Ten million apartments? Twenty million jobs, and all non-G. Not Civil Service.

  Gram may be handing us a hot potato, he said to himself.

  If we take over the functions of government even briefly, we’ll have to process them. We might – incredibly – find ourselves putting them back in the camps on a ’temporary’ basis. Jesus, he thought, how ironic can you get?

  Morgo Rahn Wile said suddenly, ‘A man-of-war portside.’

  ‘A what at what?’

  ‘Check your radar screen. You’ll see a blip – a ship, a large one, moving very fast, too fast for a commercial vehicle, coming directly at us.’ A pause. ‘On a collision course; they’re going to sacrifice themselves to stop us.’

  ‘Can they?’

  Patiently, Morgo said, ‘No, Mr. Provoni. Even when they have mounted .88 hydrogen warheads or four hydrogen warhead torpedoes.’

  I’ll wait, Provoni thought, as he bent over his radar screen, until I see it. Because this is obviously one of those fast new LR-82s – he rubbed his forehead wearily. ‘No, that was ten years ago; I’m living in the past. Anyway,’ he said, ‘it’s a fast ship.’

  ‘Not as fast as ours, Mr. Provoni,’ Morgo said. The Gray Dinosaur boomed and shuddered, as rocket engines were fired; then the characteristic whine that came from entering hyperspace.

  The ship followed. There, on the screen once more, it hung, and it moved closer with each second, all its main engines firing in a brilliant nimbus of dancing, flaming, yellow light.

  ‘I think it ends right here,’ Provoni said.

  NINETEEN

  Notification reached Willis Gram with no delay. To the members of the Extraordinary Committee for Public Safety, gathered about his bed in his office-bedroom, he said, propping himself bolt upright among the pillows, ‘Listen to this.’

  Badger has Gray Dinosaur on its sighters. Dinosaur has begun evasive maneuvers. We are closing rapidly.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Gram said happily. To the Committee members he said, ‘I called you here because of this third transmission we got from Provoni. They’ll be here in six days.’ He stretched, yawned, grinned around at them. ‘I was going to tell you how fast we have to act to open the relocation camps, as well as stopping our crackdown on Under Men still at large, and blowing up their transmitters and printing presses and like that. But: if Badger pulverizes Dinosaur, then that’s it! We can go on as if nothing has happened, as if Provoni never made it back here at all.’

  ‘But the first two notes were telecast,’ Fred Rayner, the Interior Minister, said bitingly.

  ‘Well, we’ll not disclose it about the third message. About them landing here in six days and “taking over the government”, and all that.’

  ‘Mr. Council Chairman,’ Duke Bostrich, Minister of State, said, ‘the third message is coming in – so help me God – on the forty meter band, so it’s been picked up here and there all over the world. By this time tomorrow, everyone will know.’

  ‘But if Badger gets Dinosaur it won’t matter.’ Gram inhaled deeply, reached to take an amphetamine capsule to soar even higher in this sudden, unexpected moment of greatness. ‘You know,’ he said to them all, especially Patty Platt, Minister of Defense, who had never liked or respected him, ‘you know it was my idea to station ships like Badger out there five years ago… picket ships, not heavily armed. We know the Gray Dinosaur isn’t armed. So even a picket ship can destroy it.’

  ‘Sir,’ General Hefele said, ‘I am familiar with the T-144 class of picket ships, the class including Badger. Because of the long periods they must remain in space, and the distances they need to cover, they are built too clumsily to maneuver to where a bow shot, I use that as an example, could effectively be—’

  ‘You mean,’ Gram said, ‘that my picket ships are obsolete? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because,’ General Rayburn with his thin, black moustache said, ‘it never occurred to us that (one) Provoni might return, and (two) that a picket ship stationed in some vast area of empty space could sight Provoni if, or I suppose I should say when, Provoni returned.’ He gestured. ‘The number of parsecs it—’

  ‘Generals Rayburn and Hefele,’ Gram said, ‘you will begin to compose resignation notes. Have them ready for me within an hour.’ He lay back, then, abruptly started up; he pressed a button which turned on his general fone screen. It showed the Wyoming computer, or at least a section of it.

  ‘Technician,’ he instructed.

  A white-smocked programmer appeared. ‘Yes, Council Chairman.’

  Gram said, ‘I want a prognosis on this situation: a T-144 picket ship has encountered Gray Dinosaur at’ – he reached for his desk, groping and straining and grunting – ‘at these coordinates.’ He read them to the technician, who was of course recording these instructions. ‘I want to know,’ he said, ‘with all facts considered, what are the chances that a T-144 class ship could destroy the Gray Dinosaur?’

  The technician rewound the tape, then plugged the deck into the computer’s input and turned the switch to on. Behind plastic frames, wheels spun around; tapes wound themselves and rewound themselves.

  Mary Scourby, Minister of Agriculture, said, ‘Why don’t we just wait and see the outcome of the battle?’

  ‘Because,’ Willis Gram said, ‘that damn Dinosaur and that donkey Provoni driving it – plus their nonterrestrial friend – it may be all souped-up with weapons. And a fleet may be following.’ To General Hefele, who was already painstakingly writing out his resignation, Gram said, ‘Do our radar scopes sight anything else in that area? Ask Badger.’

  From his coat pocket, General Hefele brought forth a transmitter-receiver. ‘Any other blips seen by Badger?’ A pause. ‘No.’ He returned to writing his resignation.

  The technician in Wyoming said, ‘Mr. Council Chairman, we have the 996-D computer’s response to your query. It feels that the third message from Thors Provoni, the one we’re picking up on all forty meter band frequencies, is the critical datum. The computer analyzes that the statement beginning, “We will join you in six days” implies that one of the aliens is with Provoni. Not knowing the alien’s powers, it cannot compute, but it does go on to answer a correlative — the Gray Dinosaur cannot out-maneuver a T-144 picket ship for very long. So the unknown variable – the presence of the alien – is too great. It can’t compute the situation.’

  ‘I’m receiving a message from the crew monitoring Badger,’ General Rayburn said suddenly. ‘Be quiet.’ He tilted his head on one side, toward the side of his ear-insert fone.

  Silence.

  ‘Badger’s gone,’ General Rayburn said.

  ‘Gone?’ A half-dozen voices spoke up at once. ‘Gone?’ Gram demanded. ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Into hyperspace. We’ll know soon because, as has been abundantly shown, a ship can remain in hyperspace for ten, twelve, fifteen minutes at the most. We won’t have to wait long.’

  ‘Dinosaur took off right into hyperspace?’ General Hefele asked, incredulously. ‘That’s only done as a last resort – the most extreme evasion measure possible. And they drew Badger into it after them. Maybe Dinosaur has been rebuilt; maybe its exterior surfaces are now of an alloy that does not decompose rapidly in hyperspace. Maybe they need only to wait until Badger blows up or returns to mutual or paraspace. You know, the Gray Dinosaur that left this system ten years ago may not be the Gray Dinosaur that’s coming back.’

  ‘Badger recognized it,’ General Hefele said. ‘It’s the same ship, and if modified, at least not so outwardly. Captain Greco of Badger, before he dropped down into hyperspace, said that it fitted the ident foto made fifteen years a
go to the last jot and tittle, except—’

  ‘“Except”?’ Gram asked, grinding his molars. I’ve got to stop grinding my teeth, he realized; I broke right through that upper right cap, that time. That should have taught me. He leaned back, fooled with his pillows.

  ‘Except,’ General Hefele said, ‘some of the exterior sensors were either missing or visibly changed, possibly damaged. And of course the hull was deeply pitted.’

  ‘Badger could see all that?’ Gram said wonderingly.

  ‘The new Knewdsen radar scopes, the so-called eyepiece models, can—’

  ‘Be quiet.’ Gram was consulting his watch. ‘I’ll time them,’ he said vigorously. ‘It’s been about three minutes already, hasn’t it? I’ll make it five, just to be on the safe side.’ He sat in silence, studying his Omega watch; everyone else studied his own.

  Five minutes passed.

  Ten.

  Fifteen.

  Over in the corner, Camelia Grimes, the Minister of Job Opportunities and Education, began to sniffle quietly into her lace handkerchief. ‘He lured them to their death,’ she half-spoke, half-whispered huskily. ‘Oh, dear, it’s so sad, just so sad. All those men lost.’

  Gram said, ‘Yeah, that’s sad. It’s also sad, too, that he got by a picket ship. One chance in – what? A billion? That a picket ship would pick it up in the first place. It almost looked like then and there we had him. Nailed down; snuffed, as a sight for his alien friends to witness.’

  To General Hefele, General Rayburn said, ‘Are there any other ships which might pick up the Gray Dinosaur when and if it emerges from hyperspace?’

  General Hefele said, ‘No.’

  ‘So we won’t know if it emerged,’ Gram said. ‘Maybe it was destroyed, too, along with Badger.’

  ‘We’ll know when and if it comes out of hyperspace,’ General Hefele said, ‘because as soon as it emerges, it’ll begin transmitting that signal on the forty meter band, again.’ To an aide he said, ‘Have my com-net monitor for a renewed indication of their transmission.’ To Gram he said, ‘I’m assuming—’