Philip Dick - Ubik

“No consultation,” Joe said, shaking his head. “No earphone, no microphone. No protophasons. No half-life. Not until we get back to Earth and transfer him to a moratorium.”

“Then, how can we tell if we froze him soon enough?” Don Denny asked.

“We can’t,” Joe said.

“His brain may have deteriorated,” Sammy Mundo said, grinning. He giggled.

“That’s right,” Joe said. “We may never hear the voice or the thoughts of Glen Runciter again. We may have to run Runciter Associates without him. We may have to depend on what’s left of Ella; we may have to move our offices to the Beloved Brethren Moratorium at Zurich and operate out of there.” He seated himself in an aisle seat where he could watch the four inertials haggling over the correct way to direct the ship. Somnambulantly, engulfed by the dull, dreary ache of shock, he got out a bent cigarette and lit it.

The cigarette, dry and stale, broke apart as he tried to hold it between his fingers. Strange, he thought.

“The bomb blast,” Al Hammond said, noticing. “The heat.”

“Did it age us?” Wendy asked, from behind Hammond; she stepped past him and seated herself beside Joe. “I feel old. I am old; your package of cigarettes is old; we’re all old, as of today, because of what has happened. This was a day for us like no other.”

With dramatic energy the ship rose from the surface of Luna, carrying with it, absurdly, the plastic connective tunnel.

“Our best move,” Joe Chip said, “seems to be this. We’ll land at Zurich.” He picked up the microwave audiophone provided by Runciter’s expensive, well-appointed ship and dialed the regional code for Switzerland. “By putting him in the same moratorium as Ella we can consult both of them simultaneously; they can be linked up electronically to function in unison.”

“Protophasonically,” Don Denny corrected.

Joe said, “Do any of you know the name of the manager of the Beloved Brethren Moratorium ?”

“Herbert something,” Tippy Jackson said. “A German name.”

Wendy Wright, pondering, said, “Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang. I remember it because Mr. Runciter once told me it means ‘Herbert, the beauty of the song of birds.’ I wish I had been named that. I remember thinking that at the time.”

“You could marry him,” Tito Apostos said.

“I’m going to marry Joe Chip,” Wendy said in a somber, introspective voice, with childlike gravity.

“Oh?” Pat Conley said. Her light-saturated black eyes ignited “Are you really?”

“Can you change that too?” Wendy said. “With your talent?”

Pat said, “I’m living with Joe. I’m his mistress. Under our arrangement I pay his bills. I paid his front door, this morning, to let him out. Without me he’d still be in his conapt.”

“And our trip to Luna,” Al Hammond said, “would not have taken place.” He eyed Pat, a complex expression on his face.

“Perhaps not today,” Tippy Jackson pointed out, “but eventually. What difference does it make? Anyhow, I think that’s fine for Joe to have a mistress who pays his front door.” She nudged Joe on the shoulder, her face beaming with what struck Joe as salacious approval. A sort of vicarious enjoying of his private, personal activities. In Mrs. Jackson a voyeur dwelt beneath her extroverted surface.

“Give me the ship’s over-all phone book,” he said. “I’ll notify the moratorium to expect us.” He studied his wrist watch. Ten more minutes of flight.

“Here’s the phone book, Mr. Chip,” Jon Ild said, after a search; he handed him the heavy square box with its keyboard and microscanner.

Joe typed out SWITZ, then ZUR, then BLVD BRETH MORA. “Like Hebrew,” Pat said from behind him. “Semantic condensations.” The microscanner whisked back and forth, selecting and discarding; at last its mechanism popped up a punch card, which Joe fed into the phone’s receptor slot.

The phone said tinnily, “This is a recording.” It expelled the punch card vigorously. “The number which you have given me is obsolete. If you need assistance, place a red card in—”

“What’s the date on that phone book?” Joe asked Ild, who was returning it to its handy storage shelf.

Ild examined the information stamped on the rear of the box. “1990. Two years old.”

“That can’t be,” Edie Dorn said. “This ship didn’t exist two years ago. Everything on it and in it is new.”

Tito Apostos said, “Maybe Runciter cut a few corners.”

“Not at all,” Edie said. “He lavished care, money and engineering skill on Pratfall II. Everybody who ever worked for him knows that; this ship is his pride and joy.”

“Was his pride and joy,” Francy Spanish corrected.

“I’m not ready to admit that,” Joe said. He fed a red card into the phone’s receptor slot. “Give me the current number of the Beloved Brethren Moratorium in Zurich, Switzerland,” he said. To Francy Spanish he said, “This ship is still his pride and joy because he still exists.”

A card, punched into significance by the phone, leaped out; he transferred it to its receptor slot. This time the phone’s computerized workings responded without irritation; on the screen a sallow, conniving face formed, that of the unctuous busybody who ran the Beloved Brethren Moratorium . Joe remembered him with dislike.

“I am Herr Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang. Have you come to me in your grief, sir? May I take your name and address, were it to happen that we got cut off?” The moratorium owner poised himself.

Joe said, “There’s been an accident.”

“What we deem an ‘accident,’ ” von Vogelsang said, “is ever yet a display of god’s handiwork. In a sense, all life could be called an ‘accident.’ And yet in fact—”

“I don’t want to engage in a theological discussion,” Joe said. “Not at this time.”

“This is the time, out of all times, when the consolations of theology are most soothing. Is the deceased a relative?”

“Our employer,” Joe said. “Glen Runciter of Runciter Associates , New York. You have his wife Ella there. We’ll be landing in eight or nine minutes; can you have one of your transport cold-pac vans waiting?”

“He is in cold-pac now?”

“No,” Joe said. “He’s warming himself on the beach at Tampa, Florida.”

“I assume your amusing response indicates yes.”

“Have a van at the Zurich spaceport,” Joe said, and rang off. Look who we’ve got to deal through, he reflected, from now on. “We’ll get Ray Hollis,” he said to the inertials grouped around him.

Removing the plastic disk from its place, its firm adhesion to his ear, Glen Runciter said into the microphone, “I’ll talk to you again later.” He now set down all the communications apparatus, rose stiffly from the chair and momentarily stood facing the misty, immobile, icebound shape of Joe Chip resting within its transparent plastic casket. Upright and silent, as it would be for the rest of eternity.

“Get him instead of Mr. Vogelsang?” Sammy Mundo asked.

“Get him in the manner of getting him dead,” Joe said. “For bringing this about.” Glen Runciter, he thought, frozen upright in a transparent plastic casket ornamented with plastic rosebuds. Wakened into half-life activity one hour a month. Deteriorating, weakening, growing dim… Christ, he thought savagely. Of all the people in the world. A man that vital. And vitalic.