Philip Dick - Ubik

“The more we make use of, the sooner we can get the job done. Since you’re in a hurry, we’ll move them all in at one time. If you are authorized to sign a work contract in the name of your employer,”—he pointed a steady, unyielding finger at her; she did not blink—“and you can come up with a retainer now, we could probably accomplish this within seventy-two hours.” He eyed her then, waiting.

The microspeaker in his ear rasped, “As owner of Techprise she is fully bonded. She can legally obligate her firm up to and including its total worth. Right now she is calculating how much this would be, if converted on today’s market.” A pause. “Several billion poscreds, she has decided. But she doesn’t want to do this; she doesn’t like the idea of committing herself to both a contract and retainer. She would prefer to have Mick’s attorneys do that, even if it means several days’ delay.”

But they’re in a hurry, Runciter reflected. Or so they say. The microspeaker said, “She has an intuition that you know—or have guessed—whom she represents. And she’s afraid you’ll up your fee accordingly. Mick knows his reputation. He considers himself the world’s greatest mark. So he negotiates in this manner: through someone or some firm as a front. On the other hand, they want as many inertials as they can get. And they’re resigned to that being enormously expensive.”

“Forty inertials,” Runciter said idly; he scratched with his pen at a small sheet of blank paper, on his desk for just such purposes. “Let’s see. Six times fifty times three. Times forty.”

Miss Wirt, still smiling her glazed, happy smile, waited with visible tension.

“I wonder,” he murmured, “who paid Hollis to put his employees in the middle of your project.”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it?” Miss Wirt said. “What matters is that they’re there.”

Runciter said, “Sometimes one never finds out. But as you say—it’s the same as when ants find their way into your kitchen. You don’t ask why they’re there; you just begin the job of getting them back out.” He had arrived at a cost figure.

It was enormous.

“I’ll—have to think it over,” Miss Wirt said, she raised her eyes from the shocking sight of his estimate and half rose to her feet. “Is there somewhere, an office, where I can be alone? And possibly phone Mr. Howard?”

Runciter, also rising, said, “It’s rare for any prudence organization to have that many inertials available at one time. If you wait, the situation will change. So if you want them you’d better act.”

“And you think it would really take that many inertials?”

Taking Miss Wirt by the arm, he led her from his office and down the hall. To the firm’s map room. “This shows,” he told her, “the location of our inertials plus the inertials of other prudence organizations. In addition to that it shows—or tries to show—the location of all of Hollis’ PSIs.” He systematically counted the PSI ident-flags which, one by one, had been removed from the map; he wound up holding the final one: that of S. Dole Melipone. “I know now where they are,” he said to Miss Wirt, who had lost her mechanical smile as she comprehended the significance of the unpositioned ident-flags.

Taking hold of her damp hand, he deposited Melipone’s flag among her damp fingers and closed them around it. “You can stay here and meditate,” he said. “There’s a vidphone over there—” He pointed. “No one will bother you. I’ll be in my office.” He left the map room, thinking, I really don’t know that this is where they are, all those missing PSIs. But it’s possible. And—Stanton Mick had waived the routine procedure of making an objective test.

Therefore, if he wound up hiring inertials which he did not need it would be his own fault.

Legalistically speaking, Runciter Associates was required to notify the Society that some of the missing PSIs—if not all—had been found. But he had five days in which to file the notification… and he decided to wait until the last day. This kind of business opportunity, he reflected, happens once in a lifetime.

“Mrs. Frick,” he said, entering her outer office. “Type up a work contract specifying forty—” He broke off.

Across the room sat two persons. The man, Joe Chip, looked haggard and hungover and more than usually glum… looked, in fact, about as always, the glumness excepted. But beside him lounged a long-legged girl with brilliant, tumbling black hair and eyes; her intense, distilled beauty illuminated that part of the room, igniting it with heavy, sullen fire. It was, he thought, as if the girl resisted being attractive, disliked the smoothness of her skin and the sensual, swollen, dark quality of her lips.

She looks, he thought, as if she just now got out of bed. Still disordered. Resentful of the day—in fact, of every day.

Walking over to the two of them, Runciter said, “I gather G. G. is back from Topeka.”

“This is Pat,” Joe Chip said. “No last name.” He indicated Runciter, then sighed. He had a peculiar defeated quality hanging over him, and yet, underneath, he did not seem to have given up. A vague and ragged hint of vitality lurked behind the resignation; it seemed to Runciter that Joe most nearly could be accused of feigning spiritual downfall… the real article, however, was not there.

“Anti what?” Runciter asked the girl, who still sat sprawling in her chair, legs extended.

The girl murmured, “Anti-ketogenesis.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The prevention of ketosis,” the girl said remotely. “As by the administration of glucose.”

To Joe, Runciter said, “Explain.”

“Give Mr. Runciter your test sheet,” Joe said to the girl.

Sitting up, the girl reached for her purse, rummaged, then produced one of Joe’s wrinkled yellow score sheets, which she unfolded, glanced at and passed to Runciter.

“Amazing score,” Runciter said. “Is she really this good?” he asked Joe. And then he saw the two underlined crosses, the graphic symbol of indictment—of, in fact, treachery.

“She’s the best so far,” Joe said.

“Come into my office,” Runciter said to the girl; he led the way, and, behind them, the two of them followed.

Fat Miss Wirt, all at once, breathless, her eyes rolling, appeared. “I phoned Mr. Howard,” she informed Runciter. “He has now given me my instructions.” She thereupon perceived Joe Chip and the girl named Pat; for an instant she hesitated, then plunged on, “Mr. Howard would like the formal arrangements made right away. So may we go ahead now? I’ve already acquainted you with the urgency, the time factor.” She smiled her glassy, determined smile. “Do you two mind waiting?” she asked them. “My business with Mr. Runciter is of a priority nature.”

Glancing at her, Pat laughed, a low, throaty laugh of contempt.

“You’ll have to wait, Miss Wirt,” Runciter said. He felt afraid; he looked at Pat, then at Joe, and his fear quickened. “Sit down, Miss Wirt,” he said to her, and indicated one of the outer-office chairs.

Miss Wirt said, “I can tell you exactly, Mr. Runciter, how many inertials we intend to take. Mr. Howard feels he can make an adequate determination of our needs, of our problem.”

“How many?” Runciter asked.

“Eleven,” Miss Wirt said.

“We’ll sign the contract in a little while,” Runciter said. “As soon as I’m free.” With his big, wide hand he guided Joe and the girl into his inner office; he shut the door behind them and seated himself. “They’ll never make it,” he said to Joe. “With eleven. Or fifteen. Or twenty. Especially not with S. Dole Melipone involved on the other side.” He felt tired as well as afraid. “This is, as I assumed, the potential trainee that G. G. scouted in Topeka? And you believe we should hire her? Both you and G. G. agree? Then we’ll hire her, naturally.” Maybe I’ll turn her over to Mick, he said to himself. Make her one of the eleven. “Nobody has managed to tell me yet,” he said, “which of the PSI talents she counters.”