Some reviewers have found “bitterness” in my writing. I am surprised, because my mood is one of trust. Perhaps they are bothered by the fact that what I trust is so very small. They want something vaster. I have news for them: there is nothing vaster. Nothing more, I should say. But really, how much do we have to have? Isn’t Mr. Tagomi enough? I know it counts. I am satisfied.
I suppose I’ve recalled it twice now because I like to think of that small element of trust, of idealism, in Phil’s writings. Perhaps I’m imposing a construction, though, in doing this. He was a complex person, and I’ve a feeling he left a lot of different people with a lot of different impressions. This in mind, the best I can render of the man I knew and liked—mostly at long distance—is obviously only a crude sketch, but it’s the best I have to show. And since much of this piece is self-plagiarism, I feel no guilt in closing with something else I’ve said before:
The subjective response… when a Philip Dick book has been finished and put aside is that, upon reflection, it does not seem so much that one holds the memory of a story; rather, it is the after effects of a poem rich in metaphor that seem to remain.
This I value, partly because it does defy a full mapping, but mainly because that which is left of a Phil Dick story when the details have been forgotten is a thing which comes to me at odd times and offers me a feeling or a thought; therefore, a thing which leaves me richer for having known it.
It is gratifying to know that he is being acclaimed and remembered with fetidness in many places. I believe it will last. I wish it had come a lot sooner.
Roger Zelazny
October, 1986
Stability
Robert Benton slowly spread his wings, flapped them several times and sailed majestically off the roof and into the darkness.
He was swallowed up by the night at once. Beneath him, hundreds of tiny dots of light betokened other roofs, from which other persons flew. A violet hue swam close to him, then vanished into the black. But Benton was in a different sort of mood, and the idea of night races did not appeal to him. The violet hue came close again and waved invitingly. Benton declined, swept upward into the higher air.
After a while he leveled off and allowed himself to coast on air currents that came up from the city beneath, the City of Lightness. A wonderful, exhilarating feeling swept through him. He pounded his huge, white wings together, flung himself in frantic joy into the small clouds that drifted past, dived at the invisible floor of the immense black bowl in which he flew, and at last descended toward the lights of the city, his leisure time approaching an end.
Somewhere far down a light more bright than the others winked at him: the Control Office. Aiming his body like an arrow, his white wings folded about him, he headed toward it. Down he went, straight and perfect. Barely a hundred feet from the light he threw his wings out, caught the firm air about him, and came gently to rest on a level roof.
Benton began to walk until a guide light came to life and he found his way to the entrance door by its beam. The door slid back at the pressure of his fingertips and he stepped past it. At once he began to descend, shooting downward at increasing speed. The small elevator suddenly stopped and he strode out into the Controller’s Main Office.
“Hello,” the Controller said, “take off your wings and sit down.”
Benton did so, folding them neatly and hanging them from one of a row of small hooks along the wall. He selected the best chair in sight and headed toward it.
“Ah,” the Controller smiled, “you value comfort.”
“Well,” Benton answered, “I don’t want it to go to waste.”
The Controller looked past his visitor and through the transparent plastic walls. Beyond were the largest single rooms in the City of Lightness. They extended as far as his eyes could see, and farther. Each was—
“What did you want to see me about?” Benton interrupted. The Controller coughed and rattled some metal paper-sheets.
“As you know,” he began, “Stability is the watchword. Civilization has been climbing for centuries, especially since the twenty-fifth century. It is a law of nature, however, that civilization must either go forward or fall backward; it cannot stand still.”
“I know that,” Benton said, puzzled. “I also know the multiplication table. Are you going to recite that, too?”
The Controller ignored him.
“We have, however, broken that law. One hundred years ago—”
One hundred years ago! It hardly seemed as far back as that when Eric Freidenburg of the States of Free Germany stood up in the International Council Chamber and announced to the assembled delegates that mankind had at last reached its peak. Further progress forward was impossible. In the last few years, only two major inventions has been filed. After that, they had all watched the big graphs and charts, seen the lines going down and down, according to their squares, until they dipped into nothing. The great well of human ingenuity had run dry, and then Eric had stood up and said the thing everyone knew, but was afraid to say. Naturally, since it had been made known in a formal fashion, the Council would have to begin work on the problem.
There were three ideas of solution. One of them seemed more humane than the other two. This solution was eventually adopted. It was—Stabilization!
There was great trouble at first when the people learned about it, and mass riots took place in many leading cities. The stock market crashed, and the economy of many countries went out of control. Food prices rose, and there was mass starvation. War broke out… for the first time in three hundred years! But Stabilization had begun. Dissenters were destroyed, radicals were carted off. It was hard and cruel but seemed to be the only answer. At last the world settled down to a rigid state, a controlled state in which there could be no change, either backward or forward.
Each year every inhabitant took a difficult, week-long examination to test whether or not he was backsliding. All youths were given fifteen years of intensive education. Those who could not keep up with the others simply disappeared. Inventions were inspected by Control Offices to make certain that they could not upset Stability. If it seemed that they might—
“And that is why we cannot allow your invention to be put into use,” the Controller explained to Benton. “I am sorry.”
He watched Benton, saw him start, the blood drain from his face, his hands tremble.
“Come now,” he said kindly, “don’t take it so hard; there are other things to do. After all, you are not in danger of the Cart!”
But Benton only stared. At last he said,
“But you don’t understand: I have no invention. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No invention!” the Controller exclaimed. “But I was here the day you entered it yourself! I saw you sign the statement of ownership! You handed me the model!”
He stared at Benton. Then he pressed a stud on his desk and said into a small circle of light, “Send me up the information on number 34500-D, please.”
A moment passed, and then a tube appeared in the circle of light. The Controller lifted the cylindrical object out and passed it to Benton.
“You’ll find your signed statement there,” he said, “and it has your fingerprints in the print squares. Only you could have made them.”
Numbly, Benton opened the tube and took out the papers inside. He studied them a few moments, and then slowly put them back and handed the tube to the Controller.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s my writing, and those are certainly my prints. But I don’t understand, I never invented a thing in my life, and I’ve never been here before! What is this invention?”
“What is it!” the Controller echoed, amazed. “Don’t you know?”
Benton shook his head. “No, I do not,” he said slowly.
“Well, if you want to find out about it, you’ll have to go down to the Offices. All I can tell you is that the plans you sent us have been denied rights by the Control Board. I’m only a spokesman. You’ll ha
ve to take it up with them.”
Benton got up and walked to the door. As with the other, this one sprang open to his touch and he went on through into the Control Offices. As the door closed behind him the Controller called angrily, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you know the penalty for upsetting Stability!”
“I’m afraid Stability is already upset,” Benton answered and went on.
The Offices were gigantic. He stared down from the catwalk on which he stood, for below him a thousand men and women worked at whizzing, efficient machines. Into the machines they were feeding reams of cards. Many of the people worked at desks, typing out sheets of information, filling charts, putting cards away, decoding messages. On the walls stupendous graphs were constantly being changed. The very air was alive with the vitalness of the work being conducted, the hum of the machines, the tap-tap of the typewriters, and the mumble of voices all merged together in a quiet, contented sound. And this vast machine, which cost countless dollars a day to keep running so smoothly, had a word: Stability!
Here, the thing that kept their world together lived. This room, these hard working people, the ruthless man who sorted cards into the pile marked “for extermination” were all functioning together like a great symphony orchestra. One person off key, one person out of time, and the entire structure would tremble. But no one faltered. No one stopped and failed at his task. Benton walked down a flight of steps to the desk of the information clerk.
“Give me the entire information on an invention entered by Robert Benton, 34500-D,” he said. The clerk nodded and left the desk. In a few minutes he returned with a metal box.
“This contains the plans and a small working model of the invention,” he stated. He put the box on the desk and opened it. Benton stared at the contents. A small piece of intricate machinery sat squatly in the center. Underneath was a thick pile of metal sheets with diagrams on them. “Can I take this?” Benton asked.
“If you are the owner,” the clerk replied. Benton showed his identification card, the clerk studied it and compared it with the data on the invention. At last he nodded his approval, and Benton closed the box, picked it up and quickly left the building via a side exit.
The side exit let him out on one of the larger underground streets, which was a riot of lights and passing vehicles. He located his direction, and began to search for a communications car to take him home. One came along and he boarded it. After he had been traveling for a few minutes he began to carefully lift the lid of the box and peer inside at the strange model. “What have you got there, sir?” the robot driver asked.
“I wish I knew,” Benton said ruefully. Two winged flyers swooped by and waved at him, danced in the air for a second and then vanished. “Oh, fowl,” Benton murmured, “I forgot my wings.” Well, it was too late to go back and get them, the car was just then beginning to slow down in front of his house. After paying the driver he went inside and locked the door, something seldom done. The best place to observe the contents was in his “consideration” room, where he spent his leisure time while not flying. There, among his books and magazines he could observe the invention at ease.
The set of diagrams was a complete puzzle to him, and the model itself even more so. He stared at it from all angles, from underneath, from above. He tried to interpret the technical symbols of the diagrams, but all to no avail.
There was but one road now open to him. He sought out the “on” switch and clicked it.
For almost a minute nothing happened. Then the room about him began to waver and give way. For a moment it shook like a quantity of jelly. It hung steady for an instant, and then vanished.
He was falling through space like an endless tunnel, and he found himself twisting about frantically, grasping into the blackness for something to take hold of. He fell for an interminable time, helplessly, frightened. Then he had landed, completely unhurt. Although it had seemed so, the fall could not have been very long. His metallic clothes were not even ruffled. He picked himself up and looked about.
The place where he had arrived was strange to him. It was a field… such as he had supposed no longer to exist. Waving acres of grain waved in abundance everywhere. Yet, he was certain that in no place on earth did natural grain still grow. Yes, he was positive. He shielded his eyes and gazed at the sun, but it looked the same as it always had. He began to walk.
After an hour the wheat fields ended, but with their end came a wide forest. He knew from his studies that there were no forests left on earth. They had perished years before. Where was he, then?
He began to walk again, this time more quickly. Then he started to run. Before him a small hill rose and he raced to the top of it. Looking down the other side he stared in bewilderment. There was nothing there but a great emptiness. The ground was completely level and barren, there were no trees or any sign of life as far as his eyes could see, only the extensive bleached out land of death.
He started down the other side of the hill toward the plain. It was hot and dry under his feet, but he went forward anyway. He walked on, the ground began to hurt his feet—unaccustomed to long walking—and he grew tired. But he was determined to continue. Some small whisper within his mind compelled him to maintain his pace without slowing down.
“Don’t pick it up,” a voice said.
“I will,” he grated, half to himself, and stooped down.
Voice! From where! He turned quickly, but there was nothing to be seen. Yet the voice had come to him and it had seemed—for a moment—as if it were perfectly natural for voices to come from the air. He examined the thing he was about to pick up. It was a glass globe about as big around as his fist.
“You will destroy your valuable Stability,” the voice said.
“Nothing can destroy Stability,” he answered automatically. The glass globe was cool and nice against his palm. There was something inside, but heat from the glowing orb above him made it dance before his eyes, and he could not tell exactly what it was.
“You are allowing your mind to be controlled by evil things,” the voice said to him. “Put the globe down and leave.”
“Evil things?” he asked, surprised. It was hot, and he was beginning to feel thirsty. He started to thrust the globe inside his tunic.
“Don’t,” the voice ordered, “that is what it wants you to do.”
The globe was nice against his chest. It nestled there, cooling him off from the fierce heat of the sun. What was it the voice was saying?
“You were called here by it through time,” the voice explained. “You obey it now without question. I am its guardian, and ever since this time-world was created I have guarded it. Go away, and leave it as you found it.”
Definitely, it was too warm on the plain. He wanted to leave; the globe was now urging him to, reminding him of the heat from above, the dryness in his mouth, the tingling in his head. He started off, and as he clutched the globe to him he heard the wail of despair and fury from the phantom voice.
That was almost all he remembered. He did recall that he made his way back across the plain to the fields of grain, through them, stumbling and staggering, and at last to the spot where he had first appeared. The glass globe inside his coat urged him to pick up the small time machine from where he had left it. It whispered to him what dial to change, which button to press, which knob to set. Then he was falling again, falling back up the corridor of time, back, back to the graying mist from whence he had fallen, back to his own world.
Suddenly the globe urged him to stop. The journey through time was not yet complete: there was still something that he had to do.
“You say your name is Benton? What can I do for you?” the Controller asked. “You have never been here before, have you?”
He stared at the Controller. What did he mean? Why, he had just left the office! Or had he? What day was it? Where had he been? He rubbed his head dizzily and sat down in the big chair. The Controller watched him anxiously.
“Are you all right?” he
asked. “Can I help you?”
“I’m all right,” Benton said. There was something in his hands.
“I want to register this invention to be approved by the Stability Council,” he said, and handed the time machine to the Controller.
“Do you have the diagrams of its construction?” the Controller asked.
Benton dug deeply into his pocket and brought out the diagrams. He tossed them on the Controller’s desk and laid the model beside them.
“The Council will have no trouble determining what it is,” Benton said. His head ached, and he wanted to leave. He got to his feet.
“I am going,” he said, and went out the side door through which he had entered. The Controller stared after him.
“Obviously,” the First Member of the Control Council said, “he had been using the thing. You say the first time he came he acted as if he had been there before, but on the second visit he had no memory of having entered an invention, or even having been there before?”
“Right,” the Controller said. “I thought it was suspicious at the time of the first visit, but I did not realize until he came the second time what the meaning was. Undoubtedly, he used it.”
“The Central Graph records that an unstabilizing element is about to come up,” the Second Member remarked. “I would wager that Mr. Benton is it.”
“A time machine!” the First Member said. “Such a thing can be dangerous. Did he have anything with him when he came the—ah—first time?”
The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Classic Stories Page 2