Philip Dick - GALACTIC POT HEALER

Glimmung? He strained to see as the thing drew closer; it pumped and flapped until it reached a dome of the staging area. It did not land, however; laboriously it continued past; he heard and felt it go by overhead in the night's darkness.

At the same time an autonomic alarm, triggered by the thing's proximity, tripped on; a recorded, stentorian voice began to speak from horns here and there throughout the structure.

"Attention! A false Glimmung is active! Take emergency procedures under condition Three! Attention! A false Glimmung—" It boomed on and on.

The flailing, thrashing object which had risen from the sea was not Glimmung.

The worst alternative had come about. Glimmung had been defeated. He realized it as he heard the alarm and listened to the heavy rustle of giant, preoccupied wings. The thing had a mission. It was heading in a calculated direction. Where? Joe wondered. Reflexively he cringed; even without landing it cast its terrible weight over the planet's surface. And over him as well. It seemed as if he bore the thing, at least momentarily. It's not interested in me, he said to himself, as he crouched, eyes shut, his body drawn into a fetal position.

He said aloud, "Glimmung."

There was no answer.

It's heading toward the spaceport, he said to himself. They will never leave this planet. Going that way—he sensed the determination in its exhausted straining. Glimmung had damaged it but not destroyed it. And Glimmung lay at the bottom of Mare Nostrum, probably—almost certainly—dying.

I've got to go below, Joe realized. I have to dive once more, to see if there's anything I can do for him. Frantically, he began collecting his previous diving gear; he found oxygen tanks, the transparent mask, flippers, his torch; he located weights to fix his belt... feverishly he worked. And, as he crept into the skintight suit, he realized that it didn't matter. He was too late.

And, he thought, even if I find him I have no way of grappling him; I have no hoist by which to bring him up. And who can heal him? Not me. Not anyone.

He gave up. He began stripping the suit and weighted belt from him. His half-paralyzed fingers plucked at the zipper—the job of desuiting lay almost beyond his capacity.

A disaster of a trade, he thought. Glimmung now on the ocean bottom; the Black Glimmung, the false Glimmung, in charge of the sky. Everything has been reversed, and a dangerous situation has become a catastrophe.

But at least, he thought, it didn't try to get me. It flapped on past... in search of greater prey.

He gazed out across the water; he shone his torch on the spot where Glimmung and his antithesis had sunk. What appeared to be bits of hide and broken clumps of feathers shone pale and sticky in the light of the torch. And a deep stain eddying out in greater and greater circles like oil. Blood, he thought. The thing is hurt, all right. Unless that's Glimmung's blood.

Stiffly, his arms shaking, he managed to creep down into the moored power boat. Presently he had put-putted out to the spot; the blood slick glistened on all sides of his boat as he shut off the power to the engine and merely drifted. The flotsam told him nothing. Even so, he remained there, listening to the sound of waves flopping blindly against a dark coastline somewhere behind him. Experimentally, he reached his hand down into the water and brought it out. The slime, in torch light, looked black. But it was blood. Fresh blood and lots of it. Blood from something which had been permanently maimed. Beyond hope of recovery.

It—whoever lost this blood—will die in a matter of days, he decided. Or possibly hours.

From the depths of the ocean a bottle floated up. At once he spotted it with his torch, snapped the power on to the engine, and put-putted toward it; reaching, he lifted the bottle into the boat.

A note. He uncorked the bottle, shook the note out into his waiting hand. By torch light he read it.

Good news! I have routed the opposition and am presently recuperating.

In disbelief he reread the words. Is it a gag? he wondered. Fake bravado at a time like this? And that was exactly what the pot had called Glimmung: a fake . And, by extension, the note itself a forgery, not really from Glimmung; like the words on the pot, this could be a product of the cathedral—not the Black counterpart but by the Heldscalla which Glimmung intended—or had intended—to raise. "I have routed the opposition," he echoed in his mind as he reread the note once again. There is a credibility gap here, he decided. The enemy, as it thrashed its way out of the water and into the air, had seemed damaged but not mortally so. It was Glimmung, unable to ascend from the ocean floor, who seemed to Joe to be mortally damaged, despite this note.

A second bottle, smaller than the previous two, floated to the surface. He sequestered it, unscrewed the lid, and read the brief note within.

The previous communiqué is not a forgery. I am in good health and hope you are the same. G.

P.S. It will no longer be necessary for anyone to leave the planet. Notify them that I am all right, and tell them to stay in their living areas for the time being. G.

"But it's too late," Joe said aloud. They're leaving right now. Glimmung, you waited too long. I am the only one left. I and the robots; in particular Willis. And we are not much. Nothing at all compared with the gigantic and varied crew which you assembled for the task of raising Heldscalla. Your Project has come to an end.

And what was more this note could be a forgery, too. An attempt by the cathedral to hold onto everyone, to keep them from leaving the planet as Miss Reiss had ordered. However, the note had the authentic ring of Glimmung's style. If the notes were forgeries, they were good ones.

Taking the last sheet of paper, Joe wrote an answer on the back of it in block letters.

If you are in good health why are you staying down below?

Signed Worried Employee.

He stuffed the note in one of the bottles, put in a weight from his belt, screwed tight the lid, and dropped the bottle over the side of the boat. It sank immediately. And, almost immediately, came bobbing back up. He fished it in and opened it.

I am currently dispatching the Black Cathedral. Will return to the dry land when that has been done. Signed Confident Employer.

P.S. Get the others. They will be needed. G.

Obediently, but without conviction, Joe put-putted back to the lit-up staging area. He located a vidphone—there were several—and when connected asked the autonomic phone system to connect him with the tower at the planet's sole spaceport.

"When did the last major ship take off?" he asked the tower.

"Yesterday."

"Then you have an intersystem ship on your pad right now?"

"Yes, we do."

Good news, and yet, in a sense, ominous news, too. Joe said, "Glimmung wants it halted and the passengers dispersed so that they can come here."

"You have authority to speak for Mr. Glimmung?"

"Yes," Joe said.

"Prove it."

"He told me orally."

"Prove it."

"If you let the ship go," Joe said, "then Heldscalla will never be raised. And Glimmung will destroy you."

"Let's see you verify that."

"Let me talk to Miss Reiss," Joe said.

"Who is Miss Reiss?"

"Aboard the ship. Glimmung's private secretary."

"I can't take orders from her either. I'm autonomic."

"Did a huge flapping thing, completely black, come your way?"

"No."

"Well," Joe said, "it's heading there. It should show up any time. Everyone on board the ship will die because you won't tell them to disperse."

"Neurotic panic alarms cannot dissuade me," the tower said, but it sounded uneasy, now. There was a pause; Joe sensed it straining to see and hear at the farthest reach of its sensory apparatus. "I—" the tower said haltingly. "I think I see it."