Philip Dick - The Philip K Dick Reader

"I'll get her," V-Stephens said. "Pull up in front of her and I'll head her off."

Patterson passed the girl and jammed on the brakes. The girl doubled off the street like a terrified hare. V-Stephens was out of the car in a single bound. He sprinted after her as she darted mindlessly back toward the rioters. He swept her up and then plunged back to the car. LeMarr and Evelyn Cutter dragged the two of them in; and Patterson sent the car bucking ahead.

A moment later he turned a corner, snapped a police rope, and passed beyond the danger zone. The roar of people, the flap-flap of feet against the pavement, died down behind them.

"It's all right," V-Stephens was saying gently and repeatedly to the girl. "We're friends. Look, I'm a webfoot, too."

The girl was huddled against the door of the car, green eyes wide with terror, thin face convulsed, knees pulled up against her stomach. She was perhaps seventeen years old. Her webbed fingers scrabbled aimlessly with the torn collar of her blouse. One shoe was missing. Her face was scratched, dark hair disheveled. From her trembling mouth only vague sounds came.

LeMarr took her pulse. "Her heart's about to pop out of her," he muttered. From his coat he took an emergency capsule and shot a narcotic into the girl's trembling forearm. "That'll relax her. She's not harmed -- they didn't get to her."

"It's all right," V-Stephens murmured. "We're doctors from the City Hos­pital, all but Miss Cutter, who manages the files and records. Dr. LeMarr is a neurologist, Dr. Patterson is a cancer specialist, I'm a surgeon -- see my hand?" He traced the girl's forehead with his surgeon's hand. "And I'm a Venusian, like you. We'll take you to the hospital and keep you there for a while."

"Did you see them?" LeMarr sputtered. "Nobody lifted a finger to help her. They just stood there."

"They were afraid," Patterson said. "They want to avoid trouble."

"They can't," Evelyn Cutter said flatly. "Nobody can avoid this kind of trouble. They can't keep standing on the sidelines watching. This isn't a football game."

"What's going to happen?" the girl quavered.

"You better get off Earth," V-Stephens said gently. "No Venusian is safe here. Get back to your own planet and stay there until this thing dies down."

"Will it?" the girl gasped.

"Eventually." V-Stephens reached down and passed her Evelyn's ciga­rettes. "It can't go on like this. We have to be free."

"Take it easy," Evelyn said in a dangerous voice. Her eyes faded to hostile coals. "I thought you were above all this."

V-Stephens' dark green face flushed. "You think I can stand idly by while my people are killed and insulted, and our interests passed over, ignored so paste-faces like Gannet can get rich on blood squeezed from --"

"Paste-face," LeMarr echoed wonderingly. "What's that mean, Vachel?"

"That's their word for Earthmen," Patterson answered. "Can it, V-Stephens. As far as we're concerned it's not your people and our people. We're all the same race. Your ancestors were Earthmen who settled Venus back in the late twentieth century."

"The changes are only minor adaptive alterations," LeMarr assured V-Stephens. "We can still interbreed -- that proves we're the same race."

"We can," Evelyn Cutter said thinly. "But who wants to marry a webfoot or a crow?"

Nobody said anything for a while. The air in the car was tense with hostil­ity as Patterson sped toward the hospital. The Venusian girl sat crouched, smoking silently, her terrified eyes on the vibrating floor.

Patterson slowed down at the check-point and showed his i.d. tab. The hospital guard signaled the car ahead and he picked up speed. As he put his tab away his fingers touched something clipped to the inside of his pocket. Sudden memory returned.

"Here's something to take your mind off your troubles," he said to V-Stephens. He tossed the sealed tube back to the webfoot. "Military fired it back this morning. Clerical error. When you're through with it hand it over to Evelyn. It's supposed to go to her, but I got interested."

V-Stephens slit open the tube and spilled out the contents. It was a routine application for admission to a Government hospital, stamped with the num­ber of a war-veteran. Old sweat-grimed tapes, papers torn and mutilated throughout the years. Greasy bits of metal foil that had been folded and refolded, stuffed in a shirt pocket, carried next to some filthy, hair-matted chest. "Is this important?" V-Stephens asked impatiently. "Do we have to worry over clerical trifles?"

Patterson halted the car in the hospital parking lot and turned off the motor. "Look at the number of the application," he said, as he pushed open the car door. "When you have time to examine it you'll find something unusual. The applicant is carrying around an old veteran's i.d. card -- with a number that hasn't been issued yet."

LeMarr, hopelessly baffled, looked from Evelyn Cutter to V-Stephens, but got no explanation.

The old man's h-loop awoke him from a fitful slumber. "David Unger," the tinny female voice repeated. "You are wanted back at the hospital. It is requested that you return to the hospital immediately."

The old man grunted and pulled himself up with an effort. Grabbing his aluminum cane he hobbled away from his sweat-shiny bench, toward the escape ramp of the park. Just when he was getting to sleep, shutting out the too-bright sun and the shrill laughter of children and girls and young soldiers...

At the edge of the park two shapes crept furtively into the bushes. David Unger halted and stood in disbelief, as the shapes glided past him along the path.

His voice surprised him. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, shrieks of rage and revulsion that echoed through the park, among the quiet trees and lawns. "Webfoots!" he wailed. He began to run clumsily after them. "Webfoots and crows! Help! Somebody help!"

Waving his aluminum cane, he hobbled after the Martian and Venusian panting wildly. People appeared, blank-faced with astonishment. A crowd formed, as the old man hurried after the terrified pair. Exhausted, he stum­bled against a drinking fountain and half-fell, his cane sliding from his fingers. His shrunken face was livid; the burn-scar stood out sick and ugly against the mottled skin. His good eye was red with hate and fury. From his wasted lips saliva drooled. He waved his skinny claw-like hands futilely, as the two altereds crept into the grove of cedars toward the far end of the park.

"Stop them!" David Unger slobbered. "Don't let them get away! What's the matter with you? You bunch of lily-white cowards. What kind of men are you?"

"Take it easy, Pop," a young soldier said good-naturedly. "They're not hurting anybody."

Unger retrieved his cane and whooshed it past the soldier's head. "You -- talker" he snapped. "What kind of a soldier are you?" A fit of coughing choked off his words; he bent double, struggling to breathe. "In my day," he managed to gasp, "we poured rocket fuel on them and strung them up. We mutilated them. We cut up the dirty webfoots and crows. We showed them."

A looming cop had stopped the pair of altereds. "Get going," he ordered ominously. "You things got no right here."

The two altereds scuttled past him. The cop leisurely raised his stick and cracked the Martian across the eyes. The brittle, thin-shelled head splin­tered, and the Martian careened on, blinded and in agony.

"That's more like it," David Unger gasped, in weak satisfaction.

"You evil dirty old man," a woman muttered at him, face white with horror. "It's people like you that make all this trouble."

"What are you?" Unger snapped. "A crow-lover?"

The crowd melted and broke. Unger, grasping his cane, stumbled toward the exit ramp, muttering curses and abuse, spitting violently into the bushes and shaking his head.