Philip Dick - The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol. 5 - The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Stories

"How can a hide," Masters demanded, "even a perpetually living one, exert influence on the contents of a book? A text already printed – pages cut, folios glued and sewed – it's against reason. Even if the binding, the damn hide, is really alive, and I can hardly believe that." He glared at Saperstein. "If it's alive, what does it live on?"

"Minute particles of food-stuffs in suspension in the atmosphere," Saperstein said, blandly.

Rising to his feet, Masters said, "Let's go. This is ridiculous."

"It inhales the particles," Saperstein said, "through its pores." His tone was dignified, even reproving.

Studying his notes, not rising along with his employer, Jack Snead said thoughtfully, "Some of the amended texts are fascinating. They vary from a complete reversal of the original passage – and the author's meaning – as in the case of Lucretius, to very subtle, almost invisible corrections – if that's the word – to texts more in accord with the doctrine of eternal life. The real question is this. Are we faced merely with the opinion of one particular life form, or does the wub know what it's talking about? Lucretius's poem, for instance; it's very great, very beautiful, very interesting – as poetry. But as philosophy, maybe it's wrong. I don't know. It's not my job; I simply edit books; I don't write them. The last thing a good copy editor does is editorialize, on his own, in the author's text. But that is what the wub, or anyhow the post-wub pelt, is doing." He was silent, then.

Saperstein said, "I'd be interested to know if it added anything of value."

"Poetically? Or do you mean philosophically? From a poetic or literary, stylistic point of view its interpolations are no better and no worse than the originals; it manages to blend in with the author well enough so that if you didn't know the text already you'd never notice." He added broodingly, "You'd never know it was a pelt talking."

"I meant from a philosophical point of view."

"Well, it's always the same message, monotonously ground out. There is no death. We go to sleep; we wake up – to a better life. What it did to De Rerum Natura ; that's typical. If you've read that you've read them all."

"It would be an interesting experiment," Masters said thoughtfully, "to bind a copy of the Bible in wub-fur."

"I had that done," Snead said.

"And?"

"Of course I couldn't take time to read it all. But I did glance over Paul's letters to the Corinthians. It made only one change. The passage that begins, 'Behold, I tell you a mystery -' it set all of that in caps. And it repeated the lines, 'Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?' ten times straight; ten whole times, all in caps. Obviously the wub agreed; that's its own philosophy, or rather theology." He said, then, weighing each word, "This basically is a theological dispute… between the reading public and the hide of a Martian animal that looks like a fusion between a hog and a cow. Strange." Again he returned to his notes.

After a solemn pause, Masters said, "You think the wub has inside information or don't you? As you said, this may not be just the opinion of one particular animal that's been successful in avoiding death; it may be the truth."

"What occurs to me," Snead said, "is this. The wub hasn't merely learned to avoid death; it's actually done what it preaches. By getting killed, skinned, and its hide – still alive – made into book covers – it has conquered death. It lives on. In what it appears to regard as a better life. We're not just dealing with an opinionated local life form; we're dealing with an organism that has already done what we're still in doubt about. Sure it knows. It's a living confirmation of its own doctrine. The facts speak for themselves. I tend to believe it."

"Maybe continual life for it ," Masters disagreed, "but that doesn't mean necessarily for the rest of us. The wub, as Mr. Saperstein points out, is unique. The hide of no other life form either on Mars or on Luna or Terra lives on, imbibing life from microscopic particles in suspension in the atmosphere. Just because it can do it -"

"Too bad we can't communicate with a wub hide," Saperstein said. "We've tried, here at Flawless, ever since we first noticed the fact of its post-mortem survival. But we never found a way."

"But we at Obelisk," Snead pointed out, "have. As a matter of fact I've already tried an experiment. I had a one-sentence text printed up, a single line reading: 'The wub, unlike every other living creature, is immortal.'

"I then had it bound in wub-fur; then I read it again. It had been changed. Here." He passed a slim book, handsomely appointed, to Masters. "Read it as it is now."

Masters read aloud: "The wub, like every other living creature, is immortal."

Returning the copy to Snead he said, "Well, all it did was drop out the un; that's not much of a change, two letters."

"But from the standpoint of meaning," Snead said, "it constitutes a bombshell. We're getting feedback from beyond the grave – so to speak. I mean, let's face it; wub-fur is technically dead because the wub that grew it is dead. This is awfully damn close to providing an indisputable verification of the survival of sentient life after death."

"Of course there is one thing," Saperstein said hesitantly. "I hate to bring it up; I don't know what bearing it has on all this. But the Martian wub, for all its uncanny – even miraculous – ability to preserve itself, is from a mentational standpoint a stupid creature. A Terran opossum, for example, has a brain one-third that of a cat. The wub has a brain one-fifth that of an opossum." He looked gloomy.

"Well," Snead said, "the Bible says. 'The last shall be the first.' Possibly the lowly wub is included under this rubric; let's hope so."

Glancing at him, Masters said, "You want eternal life?"

"Certainly," Snead said. "Everybody does."

"Not I," Masters said, with decisiveness. "I have enough troubles now. The last thing I want is to live on as the binding of a book – or in any fashion whatsoever." But inside, he had begun silently to muse. Differently. Very differently, in fact.

"It sounds like something a wub would like," Saperstein agreed. "Being the binding of a book; just lying there supine, on a shelf, year after year, inhaling minute particles from the air. And presumably meditating. Or whatever wubs do after they're dead."

"They think theology," Snead said. "They preach." To his boss he said, "I assume we won't be binding any more books in wub-fur."

"Not for trade purposes," Masters agreed. "Not to sell. But -" He could not rid himself of the conviction that some use lay, here. "I wonder," he said, "if it would impart the same high level of survival factor to anything it was made into. Such as window drapes. Or upholstery in a float-car; maybe it would eliminate death on the commuter paths. Or helmet-liners for combat troops. And for baseball players." The possibilities, to him, seemed enormous… but vague. He would have to think this out, give it a good deal of time.

"Anyhow," Saperstein said, "my firm declines to give you a refund; the characteristics of wub-fur were known publicly in a brochure which we published earlier this year. We categorically stated -"

"Okay, it's our loss," Masters said irritably, with a wave of his hand. "Let it go." To Snead he said, "And it definitely says, in the thirty-odd passages it's interpolated, that life after death is pleasant?"

"Absolutely. 'Our stint on earth doth herald an unstopping bliss.' That sums it up, that line it stuck into De Rerum Natura; it's all right there."

" 'Bliss,' " Masters echoed, nodding. "Of course, we're actually not on Earth; we're on Mars. But I suppose it's the same thing; it just means life, wherever it's lived." Again, even more gravely, he pondered. "What occurs to me," he said thoughtfully, "is it's one thing to talk abstractly about 'life after death.' People have been doing that for fifty thousand years; Lucretius was, two thousand years ago. What interests me more is not the big overall philosophical picture but the concrete fact of the wub-pelt; the immortality which it carried around with it." To Snead he said, "What other books did you bind in it?"