Philip Dick - The Philip K Dick Reader

"Sure," the old man agreed eagerly. "That was more than sixty years ago. You heard of Major Perati, haven't you? How he rammed their covering fleet into a meteor cloud as they were converging for their final attack? And how the Ba-3 was able to hold them back months before they finally slammed us?" He swore bitterly. "We held them off. Until there wasn't more'n a couple of us left. And then they came in like vultures. And what they found they --"

"Sorry, Pop." The soldiers had got lithely up, collected their lunches, and were moving toward the bench of girls. The girls glanced at them shyly and giggled in anticipation. "We'll see you some other time."

The old man turned and hobbled furiously back to his own bench. Disap­pointed, muttering under his breath and spitting into the wet bushes, he tried to make himself comfortable. But the sun irritated him; and the noises of people and cars made him sick.

He sat on the park bench, eye half shut, wasted lips twisted in a snarl of bitterness and defeat. Nobody was interested in a decrepit half-blind old man. Nobody wanted to hear his garbled, rambling tales of the battles he had fought and strategies he had witnessed. Nobody seemed to remember the war that still burned like a twisting, corroding fire in the decaying old man's brain. A war he longed to speak of, if he could only find listeners.

Vachel Patterson jerked his car to a halt and slammed on the emergency brake. "That's that," he said over his shoulder. "Make yourselves comfort­able. We're going to have a short wait."

The scene was familiar. A thousand Earthmen in gray caps and armbands streamed along the street, chanting slogans, waving immense crude banners that were visible for blocks.

NO NEGOTIATION! TALK IS FOR TRAITORS!

ACTION IS FOR MEN!

DON'T TELL THEM SHOW THEM!

A STRONG EARTH IS THE BEST GUARANTEE OF PEACE!

In the back seat of the car Edwin LeMarr put aside his report tapes with a grunt of near-sighted surprise. "Why have we stopped? What is it?"

"Another demonstration," Evelyn Cutter said distantly. She leaned back and disgustedly lit a cigarette. "Same as all of them."

The demonstration was in full swing. Men, women, youths out of school for the afternoon, marched wild-faced, excited and intense, some with signs, some with crude weapons and in partial uniform. Along the sidewalks more and more watching spectators were being tugged along. Blue-clad policemen had halted surface traffic; they stood watching indifferently, waiting for somebody to try to interfere. Nobody did, of course. Nobody was that foolish.

"Why doesn't the Directorate put a stop to this?" LeMarr demanded. "A couple of armored columns would finish this once and for all."

Beside him, John V-Stephens laughed coldly. "The Directorate finances it, organizes it, gives it free time on the vidnet, even beats up people who complain. Look at those cops standing over there. Waiting for somebody to beat up."

LeMarr blinked. "Patterson, is that true?"

Rage-distorted faces loomed up beyond the hood of the sleek '64 Buick. The tramp of feet made the chrome dashboard rattle; Doctor LeMarr tugged his tapes nervously into their metal case and peered around like a frightened turtle.

"What are you worried about?" V-Stephens said harshly. "They wouldn't touch you -- you're an Earthman. I'm the one who should be sweating."

"They're crazy," LeMarr muttered. "All those morons chanting and marching --"

"They're not morons," Patterson answered mildly. "They're just too trusting. They believe what they're told, like the rest of us. The only trouble is, what they're told isn't true."

He indicated one of the gigantic banners, a vast 3-D photograph that twisted and turned as it was carried forward. "Blame him. He's the one who thinks up the lies. He's the one who puts the pressure on the Directorate, fabricates the hate and violence -- and has the funds to sell it."

The banner showed a stern-browed white-haired gentleman, clean­shaven and dignified. A scholarly man, heavy-set, in his late fifties. Kindly blue eyes, firm jawline, an impressive and respected dignitary. Under his handsome portrait was his personal slogan, coined in a moment of inspira­tion.

ONLY TRAITORS COMPROMISE!

"That's Francis Gannet," V-Stephens said to LeMarr. "Fine figure of a man, isn't he?" He corrected himself. "Of an Earth man."

"He looks so genteel," Evelyn Cutter protested. "How could an intelli­gent-looking man like that have anything to do with this?"

V-Stephens bellowed with taut laughter. "His nice clean white hands are a lot filthier than any of those plumbers and carpenters marching out there."

"But why --"

"Gannet and his group own Transplan Industries, a holding company that controls most of the export-import business of the inner worlds. If my people and the Martian people are given their independence they'll start cutting into his trade. They'll be competition. But as it stands, they're bottled up in a cold-decked mercantile system."

The demonstrators had reached an intersection. A group of them dropped their banners and sprouted clubs and rocks. They shouted orders, waved the others on, and then headed grimly for a small modern building that blinked the word COLOR-AD in neon lights.

"Oh, God," Patterson said. "They're after the Color-Ad office." He grabbed at the door handle, but V-Stephens stopped him.

"You can't do anything," V-Stephens said. "Anyhow, nobody's in there. They usually get advance warning."

The rioters smashed the plate-plastic windows and poured into the swank little store. The police sauntered over, arms folded, enjoying the spectacle. From the ruined front office, smashed furniture was tossed out onto the side­walks. Files, desks, chairs, vidscreens, ashtrays, even gay posters of happy life on the inner worlds. Acrid black fingers of smoke curled up as the store room was ignited by a hot-beam. Presently the rioters came streaming back out, satiated and happy.

Along the sidewalk, people watched with a variety of emotions. Some showed delight. Some a vague curiosity. But most showed fear and dismay. They backed hurriedly away as the wild-faced rioters pushed brutally past them, loaded down with stolen goods.

"See?" Patterson said. "This stuff is done by a few thousand, a Commit­tee Gannet's financing. Those in front are employees of Gannet's factories, goon squads on extracurricular duty. They try to sound like Mankind, but they aren't. They're a noisy minority, a small bunch of hard-working fanatics."

The demonstration was breaking up. The Color-Ad office was a dismal fire-gutted ruin; traffic had been stopped; most of downtown New York had seen the lurid slogans and heard the tramp of feet and shouted hate. People began drifting back into offices and shops, back to their daily routine.

And then the rioters saw the Venusian girl, crouched in the locked and bolted doorway.

Patterson gunned the car forward. Bucking and grinding savagely, it hur­tled across the street and up on the sidewalk, toward the running knot of dark-faced hoods. The nose of the car caught the first wave of them and tossed them like leaves. The rest collided with the metal hull and tumbled down in a shapeless mass of struggling arms and legs.

The Venusian girl saw the car sliding toward her -- and the Earth-people in the front seat. For a moment she crouched in paralyzed terror. Then she turned and scurried off in panic, down the sidewalk and into the milling throng that filled up the street. The rioters regrouped themselves and in an instant were after her in full cry.

"Get the webfoot!"

"Webfoots back to their own planet!"

"Earth for Earthmen!"

And beneath the chanted slogans, the ugly undercurrent of unverbalized lust and hate.

Patterson backed the car up and onto the street. His fist clamped savagely over the horn, he gunned the car after the girl, abreast with the loping rioters and then past them. A rock crashed off the rear-view window and for an instant a hail of rubbish banged and clattered. Ahead, the crowd separated aimlessly, leaving an open path for the car and the rioters. No hand was lifted against the desperately running girl as she raced sobbing and panting between parked cars and groups of people. And nobody made a move to help her. Everybody watched dull-eyed and detached. Remote spectators viewing an event in which they had no part.