Philip Dick - The Philip K Dick Reader

LeMarr blinked, as dull late-afternoon sunlight filtered into his brain. He pulled himself upright -- and banged his head sharply on the dashboard of the car. Pain swirled around him and for a time he sank back down into agonized darkness. Then slowly, gradually, he emerged. And peered around him.

His car was parked in the rear of a small, dilapidated public lot. It was about five-thirty. Traffic swarmed noisily along the narrow street onto which the lot fed. LeMarr reached up and gingerly explored the side of his skull. There was a numb spot the size of a silver dollar, an area totally without sensation. The spot radiated a chill breath, the utter absence of heat, as if somehow he had bumped against a nexus of outer space.

He was still trying to collect himself and recollect the events that had preceded his period of unconsciousness, when the swift-moving form of Doctor V-Stephens appeared.

V-Stephens ran lithely between the parked surface cars, one hand in his coat pocket, eyes alert and wary. There was something strange about him, a difference that LeMarr in his befuddled state couldn't pin down. V-Stephens had almost reached the car before he realized what it was -- and at the same time was lashed by the full surge of memory. He sank down and lay against the door, as limp and inert as possible. In spite of himself he started slightly, as V-Stephens yanked the door open and slid behind the wheel.

V-Stephens was no longer green.

The Venusian slammed the door, jabbed the car key in the lock, and started up the motor. He lit a cigarette, examined his pair of heavy gloves, glanced briefly at LeMarr, and pulled out of the lot into the early-evening traffic. For a moment he drove with one gloved hand on the wheel, the other still inside his coat. Then, as he gained full speed, he slid his cold-beam out, gripped it briefly, and dropped it on the seat beside him.

LeMarr pounced on it. From the corner of his eye, V-Stephens saw the limp body swing into life. He slammed on the emergency brake and forgot the wheel; the two of them struggled silently, furiously. The car shrieked to a halt and immediately became the center of an angry mass of honking car-horns. The two men fought with desperate intensity, neither of them breathing, locked almost immobile as momentarily all forces balanced. Then LeMarr yanked away, the cold-beam aimed at V-Stephens' colorless face.

"What happened?" he croaked hoarsely. "I'm missing five hours. What did you do?"

V-Stephens said nothing. He released the brake and began driving slowly with the swirl of traffic. Gray cigarette smoke dribbled from between his lips; his eyes were half-closed, filmed over and opaque.

"You're an Earthman," LeMarr said, wonderingly. "You're not a webfoot after all."

"I'm a Venusian," V-Stephens answered indifferently. He showed his webbed fingers, then replaced his heavy driving gloves.

"But how --"

"You think we can't pass over the color line when we want to?" V-Stephens shrugged. "Dyes, chemical hormones, a few minor surgical operations. A half hour in the men's room with a hypodermic and salve... This is no planet for a man with green skin."

Across the street a hasty barricade had been erected. A group of sullen-faced men stood around with guns and crude hand-clubs, some of them Wearing gray Home Guard caps. They were flagging down cars one by one and searching them. A beefy-faced man waved V-Stephens to a halt. He strolled over and gestured for the window to be rolled down.

"What's going on?" LeMarr demanded nervously.

"Looking for webfoots," the man growled, a thick odor of garlic and perspiration steaming from his heavy canvas shirt. He darted quick, suspicious glances into the car. "Seen any around?"

"No," V-Stephens said.

The man ripped open the luggage compartment and peered in. "We caught one a couple minutes ago." He jerked his thick thumb. "See him up there?"

The Venusian had been strung up to a street lamp. His green body dangled and swayed with the early-evening wind. His face was a mottled, ugly mass of pain. A crowd of people stood around the pole, grim, mean-looking. Waiting

"There'll be more," the man said, as he slammed the luggage compart­ment. "Plenty more."

"What happened?" LeMarr managed to ask. He was nauseated and horri­fied; his voice came out almost inaudible. "Why all this?"

"A webfoot killed a man. An Earth man." The man pulled back and slapped the car. "Okay -- you can go."

V-Stephens moved the car forward. Some of the loitering people had whole uniforms, combinations of the Home Guard gray and Terran blue. Boots, heavy belt-buckles, caps, pistols, and armbands. The armbands read D.C. in bold black letters against a red background.

"What's that?" LeMarr asked faintly.

"Defense Committee," V-Stephens answered. "Gannet's front outfit. To defend Earth against the webfoots and crows."

"But --" LeMarr gestured helplessly. "Is Earth being attacked?"

"Not that I know of."

"Turn the car around. Head back to the hospital."

V-Stephens hesitated, then did as he was told. In a moment the car was speeding back toward the center of New York. "What's this for?" V-Stephens asked. "Why do you want to go back?"

LeMarr didn't hear him; he was gazing with fixed horror at the people along the street. Men and women prowling like animals, looking for some­thing to kill. "They've gone crazy," LeMarr muttered. "They're beasts."

"No," V-Stephens said. "This'll die down, soon. When the Committee gets its financial support jerked out from under it. It's still going full blast, but pretty soon the gears will change around and the big engine will start grinding in reverse."

"Why?"

"Because Gannet doesn't want war, now. It takes a while for the new line to trickle down. Gannet will probably finance a movement called P.C. Peace Committee."

The hospital was surrounded by a wall of tanks and trucks and heavy mobile guns. V-Stephens slowed the car to a halt and stubbed out his ciga­rette. No cars were being passed. Soldiers moved among the tanks with gleaming heavy-duty weapons that were still shiny with packing grease.

"Well?" V-Stephens said. "What now? You have the gun. It's your hot potato."

LeMarr dropped a coin in the vidphone mounted on the dashboard. He gave the hospital number, and when the monitor appeared, asked hoarsely for Vachel Patterson.

"Where are you?" Patterson demanded. He saw the cold-beam in LeMarr's hand, and then his eyes fastened on V-Stephens. "I see you got him."

"Yes," LeMarr agreed, "but I don't understand what's happening." He appealed helplessly to Patterson's miniature vidimage. "What'll I do? What is all this?"

"Give me your location," Patterson said tensely.

LeMarr did so. "You want me to bring him to the hospital? Maybe I should --"

"Just hold onto that cold-beam. I'll be right there." Patterson broke the connection and the screen died.

LeMarr shook his head in bewilderment. "I was trying to get you away," he said to V-Stephens. "Then you cold-beamed me. Why?" Suddenly LeMarr shuddered violently. Full understanding came to him. "You killed David Unger!"

"That's right," V-Stephens answered.

The cold beam trembled in LeMarr's hand. "Maybe I ought to kill you right now. Maybe I ought to roll down the window and yell to those madmen to come and get you. I don't know."

"Do whatever you think best," V-Stephens said.

LeMarr was still trying to decide, when Patterson appeared beside the car. He rapped on the window and LeMarr unlocked the door. Patterson climbed quickly in, and slammed the door after him.

"Start up the car," he said to V-Stephens. "Keep moving, away from downtown."

V-Stephens glanced briefly at him, and then slowly started up the motor. "You might as well do it here," he said to Patterson. "Nobody'll interfere."