Philip Dick - The Zap Gun

After a pause Lars said, "I didn't know."

"Well," General Nitz said, "when that Beretta went off, somebody had to die. That's how those pelfrag pistols are. It's a miracle it didn't get all three of you."

"It was suicide. Deliberate. I'm sure of it." Lars nodded. "She probably never intended to kill Lilo, even if she thought so herself." He let out a ragged sigh of weariness and resignation. The kind of resignation that was not philosophical, not stoical, but simply a giving up.

There was nothing to be done. During his trance-state, his fugue, it had all happened. Long, long ago. Maren was dead; Lilo was at Bethesda; he, after a timeless journey to nowhere, into emptiness, had wound up in downtown Seattle, as far away, evidently, as he could manage to get from New York and what had taken place—or what he had imagined had taken place.

"Can you get back here?" General Nitz said. "To help out Lilo? Because it's just not coming; she takes her drug, that East German goofball preparation, goes into her trance, placed of course in proximity to Ricardo Hastings with no other minds nearby to distract her. And yet when she sobers up she has only—"

"The same old sketches. Derived from Oral Giacomini."

"No."

"You're sure?" His limp, abused mind came awake.

"These sketches are entirely different from anything she's done before. We've had Pete Freid examine them and he agrees. And she agrees. And they're always the same."

He felt horror. "Always what?"

"Calm down. Not of a weapon at all, not of anything remotely resembling a 'Time Warpage Generator.' They're of the physiological, anatomical, organic substance of—" General Nitz hesitated, trying to decide whether to say it over the probably-KVB-tapped vidphone.

"Say it," Lars grated.

"Of an android. An unusual type, but still an android. Much like those that Lanferman Associates uses subsurface in its weapons proving. You know what I mean. As human as possible."

Lars said, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

At the immense parking-field atop the military hospital he was met by three snappily uniformed young Marines. They escorted him, as if he were a dignitary, or perhaps, he reflected, a criminal, or a gestalt of both combined, down-ramp at once to the high security floor on which it was taking place.

It. No such word as they. Lars noted the attempt to dehumanize the activity which he had come here to involve himself in.

He remarked to his escort of Marines, "It's still better than falling into the hands, if they do have hands, of alien slavers from some distant star system."

"What is, sir?"

"Anything," Lars said.

The tallest Marine, and he really was tall, said, "You've got something there, sir."

As their group passed through the final security barrier, Lars said to the tall Marine. "Have you seen this old war vet, this Ricardo Hastings, yourself?"

"For a moment."

"How old would you guess he is?"

"Maybe ninety. Hundred. Older, even."

Lars said, "I've never seen him."

Ahead, the last door—and it had some super-sense, in that it anticipated exactly how many persons were to be allowed through—swung temporarily open; he saw white-clad medical people beyond. "But I'll make a bet with you," he said, as the sentient door clicked in awareness of his passage through. "As to Ricardo Hastings' age."

"Okay, sir."

Lars said, "Six months."

The three Marines stared at him.

"No," Lars said. "I'll revise that. Four months."

He continued on, then, leaving his escort behind, because ahead he saw Lilo Topchev.

"Hi," he said.

At once she turned. "Hi." She smiled, fleetingly.

"I thought you were at Piglet's house," he said. "Visiting Piglet."

"No," she said. "I'm at Pooh's house visiting Pooh."

"When that Beretta went off—"

"Oh Christ I thought it was me, and you thought it was me; you were sure and you couldn't look. Should it have been me? Anyhow it wasn't. And I would have done the same; I wouldn't have looked if I thought it was headed at you. What I've decided, and I've been thinking and thinking, never stopping thinking... I've been just so damn worried about you, where you went—you had your trance and you simply wandered off. But thinking about her I decided she must never have fired that pelfrag pistol before. She must not have had any idea what it did."

"And now what?"

"I've been working. Oh God how I've been working. Come on into the next room and meet him." She somberly led the way. "Did they tell you I haven't had any luck?"

Lars said, "It could be worse, considering what's being done to us every hour or so." On the trip east he had learned the extent of the population-volume now converted out of existence—as far as Earth was concerned—by the enemy. It was grotesque. As a calamity it had no historic parallel.

"Ricardo Hastings says they're from Sirius," Lilo said. "And they are slavers, as we suspected. They're chitinous and they have a physiological hierarchy dating back millions of years. On the planets of their system, a little under nine light-years from here, warm-blooded life forms never evolved past the lemur stage. Arboreal, with foxmuzzles, most types nocturnal, some with prehensile tails. So they don't regard us as anything but sentient freaks. Just highly-organized work-horse organisms that are somewhat clever manually. They admire our thumb. We can do all sorts of essential jobs; they think of us the way we do rats."

"But we test rats all the time. We try to learn."

"But," Lilo said, "we have lemur curiosity. Make a funny noise and we pop our heads out of our burrows to see. They don't. It seems that among the chitinous forms, even highly evolved, you're still dealing primarily with reflex-machines. Talk to Hastings about it."

Lars said, "I'm not interested in talking to him." Ahead, beyond an open door, sat—a stick-like clothed skeleton, whose dim, retracted, withered-pumpkin, caved-in face revolved slowly as if motor-driven. The eyes did not blink. The features were unstirred by emotions. The organism had deteriorated into a mere perceiving-machine. Sense-organs that swivelled back and forth ceaselessly, taking in data although how much eventually reached the brain, was recorded and understood, God knew. Perhaps absolutely none.

A familiar personality manifested itself, clipboard in hand. "I knew you'd eventually reappear," Dr. Todt said to Lars, but nevertheless he looked drastically relieved. "Did you walk?"

"Must have," Lars said.

"You don't remember."

Lars said, "Nothing. But I'm tired."

"There's a tendency," Dr. Todt said, "for even major psychoses to get walked off, given enough time. The Nomadic Solution. It's just that there's not enough time in most cases. As for you, there's no time at all." He turned then to Ricardo Hastings. "As to him, what are you going to try first?"

Lars studied the huddled old figure. "A biopsy."

"I don't understand."

"I want a tissue-sample taken. I don't care what from, any part of him."

"Why?"

Lars said, "In addition to a microscopic analysis I want it carbon-dated. How accurate is the new carbon-17-B dating method?"

"Down to fractions of a year. Months."

"That's what I thought. Okay, there won't be any sketches, trances, any other activity from me, until the carbon dating results are in."

Dr. Todt gestured. "Who can question the ways of the Immortals?"

"How long will it take?"

"We can have the results by three this afternoon."

"Good," Lars said. "I'll go get a shower, a new pair of shoes and I think a new cloak. To cheer myself up."

"The shops are closed. People are warned to stay underground during the emergency. The areas taken now include—"

"Don't rattle off a list. I heard on the trip here."