Philip Dick - Vulcan's Hammer

Barris sat down watchfully. I made my pitch, he realized. The man is right. And shrewd. He's seen a lot in his time, more than I have. Maybe I'm not the first to barge in here, yelling with indignation, trying to pin him down, force ad­missions.

Thinking that, Barris felt his confidence ebb away. But he continued to face the older man; he did not draw back. Jason Dill's face was gray now. Drops of perspiration stood out on his wrinkled forehead; bringing out his hand­kerchief he patted at them. With the other hand, however, he still held the pencil beam. "We're both a little calmer," he said. "Which in my opinion is better. You were overly dramatic. Why?" A faint, distorted smile appeared on his lips. "Have you been practicing how you would make your entrance?"

The man's hand traveled to his breast pocket. He rubbed a bulge there; Barris saw that he had something in his inner pocket, something to which his hand had gone involun­tarily. Seeing what he had, Dill at once jerked his hand away.

Medicine? Barris wondered.

"This treason gambit," Dill said. "I could try that, too. An attempted coup on your part." He pointed at a control on the edge of his desk. "All this-your grand entrance- has of course been recorded. The evidence is there." He pressed a stud, and, on the desk vidscreen, the Geneva Unity monitor appeared. "Give me the police," Dill said. Sitting with the pencil beam still pointed at Barris, he waited for the line to be put through. "I have too many other problems to take time off to cope with a Director who decides to run amuck."

Barris said, "I'll fight this all the way in the Unity courts. My conscience is clear; I'm acting in the interests of Unity, against a Managing Director who's systematically break­ing down the system, step by step. You can investigate my entire life and you won't find a thing. I know I'll beat you in the courts, even if it takes years."

"We have a letter," Dill said. On the screen the familiar heavy-jowled features of a police official appeared. "Stand by," Dill instructed him. The police official's eyes moved as he took in the scene of the Managing Director holding his gun on Director Barris.

"That letter," Barris said as steadily as possible, "has no factual basis for the charges it makes."

"Oh?" Dill said. "You're familiar with its charges?"

"Rachel Pitt gave me all the information," Barris said. So she had been telling the truth. Well, that letter-spuri­ous as its charges were-coupled with this episode, would probably be enough to convict him. The two would dove­tail; they would create together the sort of evidence ac­ceptable to the Unity mentality.

The police official eyed Barris.

At his desk, Jason Dill held the pencil beam steadily.

Barris said, "Today I sat in the same room with Father Fields."

Reaching his hand out to the vidsender, Jason Dill re­flected and then said, "I'll ring you off and recontact you later." With his thumb he broke the connection; the image of the police official, still staring at Barris, faded out.

Jason Dill rose from his desk and pulled lose the power cable supplying the recording scanner which had been on since Barris entered the room. Then he reseated himself.

"The charges in the letter are true!" he said with in­credulity . "My God, it never occurred to me..." Then, rubbing his forehead he said, "Yes, it did. Briefly. So they managed to penetrate to the Director level." His eyes showed horror and weariness.

"They put a gun on me and detained me," Barris said. "When I got here to Geneva."

Doubt, mixed with distraught cunning, crossed the older man's face. Obviously, he did not want to believe that the Healers had gotten so far up into Unity, Barris realized. He would grasp at any straw, any explanation which would account for the facts ... even the true one, Barris thought bitingly. Jason Dill had a psychological need that took precedence over the habitual organizational suspicions.

"You can trust me," Barris said.

"Why?" The pencil beam still pointed at him, but the conflicting emotions swept back and forth through the man.

"You have to believe someone," Barris said. "Some­time, somewhere. What is that you reach up and rub, there at your chest?"

Grimacing, Dill glanced down at his hand; again it was at his chest. He jerked it away. "Don't play on my fears," he said.

"Your fear of isolation?" Barris said. "Of having every­one against you? Is that some physical injury that you keep rubbing?"

Dill said, "No. You're guessing far too much; you're out of your depth." But he seemed more composed now. "Well, Director," he said. "I'll tell you something. I prob­ably don't have long to live. My health has deteriorated since I've had this job. Maybe in a sense you're right... it is a physical injury I'm rubbing. If you ever get where

I am, you'll have some deep-seated injuries and illnesses too. Because there'll be people around you putting them there."

"Maybe you should take a couple of flying wedge squads of police and seize the Bond Hotel," Barris said. "He was there an hour ago. Down in the old section of the city. Not more than two miles from here."

"He'd be gone," Dill said. "He turns up again and again on the outskirts this way. We'll never get him; there're a million ratholes he can slither down."

Barris said, "You almost did get him."

"When?"

"In the hotel room. When that robot tracking device entered and made for him. It almost succeeded in burning him up, but he was quite fast; he managed to roll away and get it first."

Dill said, "What robot tracking-device? Describe it." As Barris described it, Dill stared at him starkly. He swallowed noisily but did not interrupt until Barris had finished.

"What's wrong?" Barris said. "From what I saw of it, it seems to be the most effective counterpenetration weapon you have. Surely you'll be able to break up the Movement with such a mechanism. I think your anxiety and preoccu­pation is excessive."

In an almost inaudible voice, Dill said, "Agnes Parker."

"Who is that?" Barris said.

Seemingly not aware of him, Dill murmured, "Vulcan 2. And now a try at Father Fields. But he got away." Putting down his pencil beam he reached into his coat; rummaging, he brought out two reels of tape. He tossed the tape down on the desk.

"So that's what you've been carrying," Barris said with curiosity. He picked up the reels and examined them.

Dill said, "Director, there is a third force."

"What?" Barris said, with a chill.

"A third force is operating on us," Jason Dill said, and smiled grotesquely. "It may get all of us. It appears to be very strong."

He put his pencil beam away, then. The two of them faced each other without it.

The police raid on the Bond Hotel, although carried out expertly and thoroughly, netted nothing.

Jason Dill was not surprised.

In his office by himself he faced a legal dictation ma­chine. Clearing his throat he said into it hurriedly, "This is to act as a formal statement in the event of my death, ex­plaining the circumstances and reasons why I saw fit as Unity Managing Director to conduct sub rosa relations with North American Director William Barris. I entered into these relations knowing full well that Director Barris was under heavy suspicion concerning his position vis-à-vis the Healers' Movement, a treasonable band of murderers and-" He could not think of the word so he cut off the machine temporarily.

He glanced at his watch. In five minutes he had an ap­pointment with Barris; he would not have time to com­plete his protective statement anyway. So he erased the tape. Better to start over later on, he decided. If he sur­vived into the later on.

I'll go meet him, Jason Dill decided, and go on the as­sumption that he is being honest with me. I'll co-operate with him fully; I'll hold nothing back.