Philip Dick - GALACTIC POT HEALER

Worked—and did not work.

Probability, Joe said to himself. A science in itself. Bernoulli's Theorem, the Bayes-Laplace theorem, the Poisson Distribution, Negative Binomial Distribution... coins and cards and birthdays, and at last random variables. And, hanging over it all, the brooding specter of Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, the Vienna Circle of philosophy and the rise of symbolic logic. A muddy world, in which he did not quite care to involve himself. In spite of the fact that it pertained immediately to the Book of the Kalends. Muddier by far than the water realm which lapped at him and Mali.

"Let's get back to the installation," Mali said, and shivered. She abruptly paddled off, leaving him; he saw, ahead of her, the lights which the robot Willis had previously turned on for their benefit. Those lights still burned; the robot waited for them.

Amalita did not get us, Joe reflected as the two of them paddled toward the staging center with its blaze of lights. And for that he was thankful. It had been as awful as Willis—and Mali—had said. His own corpse... he could still see, in his mind, the exposed jawbone as it waggled, white and dead in the current of the Aquatic Sub-World. Amalita's world, with its own laws. Filled with refuse and everything half dead.

He reached the illuminated staging area with its three hermetically sealed domes. And there was Willis, waiting to help him up.

The robot seemed irritable as Joe and Mali removed their diving gear. "It's about time, Sir and Lady," Willis said fussily as it gathered up their equipment. "You disobeyed me and stayed too long." It corrected itself. "Disobeyed Glimmung, I mean."

Joe said, "What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, a goddam radio station," Willis said; now it worked with Mali's oxygen tanks. Its strong hands lifted them without effort. "Just consider this." It stripped her suit from her, gathered up everything, and began to lug it toward the supply locker. "I'm sitting here waiting for you to come up and listening to the radio. They're playing Beethoven's ‘Ninth.' Then there's a commercial for a hernia belt. Then the Good Friday music from Wagner's Parsifal . Then an ad for an ointment that cures athlete's foot. Then a chorale from the Bach cantata Jesu Du Meine Seele . Then an ad for a rectal suppository used in the treatment of piles. Then Pergolesi's Stabat Mater . Then an ad for a false-teeth dentifrice. Then the ‘Sanctus' from the Verdi Requiem . Then a laxative ad. Then the ‘Gloria' section from Haydn's Mass in Time of War . Then an ad for an analgesic used for female monthly disorders. Then a chorale from the Saint Matthew Passion . Then an ad for cat litter. Then—" Abruptly the robot ceased speaking. It tilted its head, as if listening.

And now Joe heard it. And, beside him, Mali seemed to have heard it, too; she turned swiftly, then loped to the building's entrance. Outside, in the meager light, she peered up.

He followed after her. So did Willis.

A huge bird hung in the night sky, containing two hoops: one of water, one of fire. Within the two an adolescent female face gazed out, partially covered by its Paisley shawl. Glimmung, as he had first appeared to Joe, yet now elevated into an enormous bird form. An eagle, Joe thought wonderingly. Screaming as it came, ploughing up the nocturnal sky with its talons. He moved backward a space, into the security of the building's doorway. And still the great bird soared toward them, the right-angle hoops spinning with shrill intensity.

"It's the old fellow," Willis said, showing no anxiety. "I asked him to come. Or did he ask me? I forget. Anyhow the two of us conversed, but it's a little blurred, now, in my mind. We have that problem, my colleagues and I."

Mali said, "He's landing."

The bird came to rest in the air, its beak working in spastic agitation; the yellow eyes glowered at Joe—specifically at Joe and no one else—and then from the huge craw of the bird, words came, shouted into the darkness of the night. Words sharp and wild, a screech of interrogation. "_You_," the bird yelled at him. "I didn't want you to go into the ocean. I didn't want you to see what's there, buried at the bottom. You are here to cure pots. What did you see? What did you do?" The shrieks of the bird had a frantic quality about them, an overpowering urgency. Glimmung had come here because he could not wait to find out; he had to know at once what had happened at the ocean bottom.

"I found a pot," Joe said.

"The pot lied!" Glimmung shrieked. "Forget what it said; listen to me instead. Do you understand?"

Joe said, "The pot only told me—"

"There're a thousand lying pots down there," Glimmung broke in. "Each has a separate, false tale to tell to anyone who happens to come by and notice it."

"A great black fish," Joe said. "It showed that."

"There is no fish. Nothing is real down there except Heldscalla. I can bring it up any time; I can do it alone, with no help from you or from anyone. I can bring each pot up myself; I can free them one by one from the coral, and if they break I can repair them or get someone who can. Shall I send you back to your cubicle to play your game? To deteriorate over the years? To sink into decay gradually over the years until you become debris, without mind or plans? Is that what you want?"

"No," Joe said. "That's not what I want."

"You are going back to Terra," Glimmung shrilled; the beak snapped open and shut, open and shut, biting the air savagely.

"I'm sorry I—" Joe began, but the bird cut him off with ruthless fury. And, as before, with overwhelming agitation.

"I will return you to the crate in my basement," Glimmung declared. "You can stay there until the police catch up with you. Further, I will tell them where you are; they will get you and they will reduce you to tatters. Do you understand? Didn't it occur to you that if you disobeyed me I'd expel you? I have no use for you. As far as I am concerned you no longer exist. I'm sorry to yell at you this way, but this is the way I get when I'm thoroughly teed off. You'll have to excuse me."

Joe said, "It seems to me you're going overboard. What in fact have I done? I went below; I found a pot; I—"

"You found the pot I didn't want you to see." The frigid eyes of the bird bored relentlessly, stultifyingly down at him. "Don't you see what you've done? You've forced my hand . I have to react now ; I can't wait!" All at once the bird wheeled upward, spinning and realigning itself, turned now toward the sea, rather than Joe. The bird shot outward, at tremendous velocity; its massive wings flapped with violent rage and the bird soared, rose, and hovered. It hung in the sky above the sea, shrieking in wild, determined bursts of ear-piercing noise. "Cavorting Cary Karns and his six phones won't help you now!" the bird shrilled as it hung in the dark sky, merging with the fog which rolled in, like waves, above the ocean surface. "The radio audience doesn't know about you! The radio audience doesn't care about you!" The bird wheeled, dropped lower...

Something rose from the sea.

"Oh god," Mali said, standing close to Joe. "It's the Black One. Coming to meet him."

From the sea the Black Glimmung ascended, meeting the authentic Glimmung in midair. Feathers flew in all directions as the two creatures raked each other with their claws; then, almost at once, the tangled mass of the two of them dropped like a stone into the water. On the surface they thrashed momentarily, and it seemed to Joe—unless it was an illusion—that the authentic Glimmung was struggling to extricate himself.

Both Glimmungs disappeared. Out of sight, into the depths of Mare Nostrum.

"It pulled him under," Mali whispered in a stricken voice. To the robot, Joe said, "Is there anything we can do? To help him? To get him free?" He's drowning, Joe realized. This will kill him.