Philip Dick - Vulcan's Hammer

Down here, buried underground in the dark, in this con­stant isolation, a human being would go mad; he would lose all contact with the world, all ideas of what was going on. As time progressed he would develop a less and less accurate picture of reality; he would become progressively more hallucinated. Vulcan 3, however, moved continually in the opposite direction; it was, in a sense, moving by de­grees toward inevitable sanity, or at least maturity-if, by that, was meant a clear, accurate, and full picture of things as they really were. A picture, Jason Dill realized, that no human being has ever had or will ever have, all humans are partial. And this giant is not!

"I'll put a rush on the educational survey," he mur­mured. "Is there anything else you need?"

The statistical report on rural linguistics has not come in. Why is that? It was under the personal supervision of your sub-co-ordinator, Arthur Graveson Pitt.

Dill cursed silently. Good lord! Vulcan 3 never mislaid or lost or mistook a single datum among the billions that it ingested and stored away. "Pitt was injured," Dill said aloud, his mind racing desperately. "His car overturned on a winding mountain road in Colorado. Or at least that's the way I recall it. I'd have to check to be sure, but-"

Have his report completed by someone else. I require it. Is his injury serious?

Dill hesitated. "As a matter of fact, they don't think he'll live. They say-"

Why have so many T-class persons been killed in the past year? I want more information on this. According to my statistics only one-fifth that number should have died of natural causes. Some vital factor is missing. I must have more data.

"All right," Dill muttered. "We'll get you more data; anything you want."

I am considering calling a special meeting of the Control Council. I am on the verge of deciding to question the staff of eleven Regional Directors personally.

At that, Dill was stunned; he tried to speak, but for a time he could not. He could only stare fixedly at the ribbon of words. The ribbon moved inexorably on.

I am not satisfied with the way data is supplied. I may demand your removal and an entirely new system of feed­ing.

Dill's mouth opened and closed. Aware that he was shaking visibly, he backed away from the computer. "Un­less you want something else," he managed. "I have busi­ness. In Geneva." All he wanted to do was get out of the situation, away from the chamber.

Nothing more. You may go.

As quickly as possible, Dill left the chamber, ascending by express lift to the surface level. Around him, in a blur, guards checked him over; he was scarcely aware of them. What a going-over, he thought. What an ordeal. Talk about the Atlanta psychologists-they're nothing com­pared with what I have to face, day after day.

God, how I hate that machine, he thought. He was still trembling, his heart palpitating; he could not breathe, and for a time he sat on a leather-covered couch in the outer lounge, recovering.

To one of the attendants he said, "I'd like a glass of some stimulant. Anything you have."

Presently it was in his hand, a tall green glass; he gulped it down and felt a trifle better. The attendant was waiting around to be paid, he realized; the man had a tray and a bill.

"Seventy-five cents, sir," the attendant said.

To Dill it was the final blow. His position as Managing Director did not exempt him from these annoyances; he had to fish around in his pocket for change. And mean­while, he thought, the future of our society rests with me. While I dig up seventy-five cents for this idiot.

I ought to let them all get blown to bits. I ought to give up.

William Barris felt a little more relaxed as the cab car­ried him and Rachel Pitt into the dark, overpopulated, older section of the city. On the sidewalks clumps of el­derly men in seedy garments and battered hats stood in­ertly. Teen-agers lounged by store windows. Most of the store windows, Barris noticed, had metal bars or gratings protecting their displays from theft. Rubbish lay piled up in alleyways.

"Do you mind coming here?" he asked the woman be­side him. "Or is it too depressing?"

Rachel had taken off her coat and put it across her lap. She wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt, probably the one she had had on when the police arrested her; it looked to him like something more suited for house use. And, he saw, her throat was streaked with what appeared to be dust. She had a tired, wan expression and she sat listlessly.

"You know, I like the city," she said, after a time.

"Even this part?"

"I've been staying in this section," she said. "Since they let me go."

Barris said, "Did they give you time to pack? Were you able to take any clothes with you?"

"Nothing," she said.

"What about money?"

"They were very kind." Her voice had weary irony in it. "No, they didn't let me take any money; they simply bun­dled me into a police ship and took off for Europe. But before they let me go they permitted me to draw enough money from my husband's pension payment to take care of getting me back home." Turning her head she finished, "Because of all the red tape, it will be several months be­fore the regular payments will be forthcoming. This was a favor they did me."

To that, Barris could say nothing.

"Do you think," Rachel said, "that I resent the way Unity has treated me?"

"Yes," he said.

Rachel said, "You're right."

Now the cab had begun to coast up to the entrance of an ancient brick hotel with tattered awning. Feeling somewhat dismayed by the appearance of the Bond Hotel, Barris said, "Will this be all right, this place?"

"Yes," Rachel said. "In fact, this is where I would have had the cab take us. I had intended to bring you here."

The cab halted and its door swung open. As Barris paid it, he thought, Maybe I shouldn't have let it decide for me. Maybe I ought to get back in and have it drive on. Turning, he glanced up at the hotel.

Rachel Pitt had already started up the steps. It was too late.

Now a man appeared in the entrance, his hands in his pockets. He wore a dark, untidy coat, and a cap pulled down over his forehead. The man glanced at her and said something to her.

At once Barris strode up the steps after her. He took her by the arm, stepping between her and the man. "Watch it," he said to the man, putting his hand on the pencil beam which he carried in his breast pocket.

In a slow, quiet voice the man said, "Don't get excited, mister." He studied Barris. "I wasn't accosting Mrs. Pitt. I was merely asking when you arrived." Coming around be­hind Barris and Rachel, he said, "Go on inside the hotel, Director. We have a room upstairs where we can talk. No one will bother us here. You picked a good place."

Or rather, Barris thought icily, the cab and Rachel Pitt picked a good place. There was nothing he could do; he felt, against his spine, the tip of the man's heat beam.

"You shouldn't be suspicious of a man of the cloth, in regards to such matters," the man said conversationally, as they crossed the grimy, dark lobby to the stairs. The ele­vator, Barris noticed, was out of order; or at least it was so labeled. "Or perhaps," the man said, "you failed to notice the historic badge of my vocation." At the stairs the man halted, glanced around, and removed his cap.

The stern, heavy-browned face that became visible was familiar to Barris. The slightly crooked nose, as if it had been broken once and never properly set. The deliberately short-cropped hair that gave the man's entire face the air of grim austerity.

Rachel said, "This is Father Fields."

The man smiled, and Barris saw irregular, massive teeth. The photo had not indicated that, Barris thought. Nor the strong chin. It had hinted at, but not really given, the full measure of the man. In some ways Father Fields looked more like a toughened, weathered prize fighter than he did a man of religion.