Philip Dick - Complete Stories 3 - Second Variety and Other Stories

He squatted down and began to pass his counter over the surface, looking for a cool spot to undress. He passed out.

"Look at him," a faint faraway voice said.

Consciousness returned with a rush. Trent pulled himself violently awake, groping for his blaster. It was morning. Gray sunlight filtered down through the trees. Around him shapes moved.

The blaster... gone!

Trent sat up, fully awake. The shapes were vaguely human -- but not very. Bugs.

"Where's my gun?" Trent demanded.

"Take it easy." A bug advanced, the others behind. It was chilly. Trent shivered. He got awkwardly to his feet as the bugs formed a circle around him. "We'll give it back."

"Let's have it now." He was stiff and cold. He snapped his helmet in place and tightened his belt. He was shivering, shaking all over. The leaves and vines dripped wet slimy drops. The ground was soft underfoot.

The bugs conferred. There were ten or twelve of them. Strange creatures, more like insects than men. They were shelled -- thick shiny chitin. Multi-lensed eyes. Nervous, vibrating antennae by which they detected radiation.

Their protection wasn't perfect. A strong dose and they were finished. They survived by detection and avoidance and partial immunity. Their food was taken indirectly, first digested by smaller warm-blooded animals and then taken as fecal matter, minus radioactive particles.

"You're a human," a bug said. Its voice was shrill and metallic. The bugs were asexual -- these, at least. Two other types existed, male drones and a Mother. These were neuter warriors, armed with pistols and foliage axes.

"That's right," Trent said.

"What are you doing here? Are there more of you?"

"Quite a few."

The bugs conferred again, antennae waving wildly. Trent waited. The jungle was stirring into life. He watched a gelatin-like mass flow up the side of a tree and into the branches, a half-digested mammal visible within. Some drab day moths fluttered past. The leaves stirred as underground creatures burrowed silently away from the light.

"Come along with us," a bug said. It motioned Trent forward. "Let's get going."

Trent fell in reluctantly. They marched along a narrow path, cut by axes some time recently. The thick feelers and probes of the jungle were already coming back. "Where are we going?" Trent demanded.

"To the Hill."

"Why?"

"Never mind."

Watching the shiny bugs stride along, Trent had trouble believing they had once been human beings. Their ancestors, at least. In spite of their incredible altered physiology the bugs were mentally about the same as he. Their tribal arrangement approximated the human organic states, communism and fascism.

"May I ask you something?" Trent said.

"What?"

"I'm the first human you've seen? There aren't any more around here?"

"I'm the first human you've seen? There aren't any more around here?"

"Are there reports of human settlements anywhere?"

"Why?"

"Just curious," Trent said tightly.

"You're the only one." The bug was pleased. "We'll get a bonus for this -- for capturing you. There's a standing reward. Nobody's ever claimed it before."

A human was wanted here too. A human brought with him valuable gnosis, odds and ends of tradition the mutants needed to incorporate into their shaky social structures. Mutant cultures were still unsteady. They needed contact with the past. A human being was a shaman, a Wise Man to teach and instruct. To teach the mutants how life had been, how their ancestors had lived and acted and looked.

A valuable possession for any tribe -- especially if no other humans existed in the region.

Trent cursed savagely. None? No others? There had to be other humans -- some place. If not north, then east. Europe, Asia, Australia. Some place, somewhere on the globe. Humans with tools and machines and equipment. The Mine couldn't be the only settlement, the last fragment of true man. Prized curiosities -- doomed when their compressors burned out and their food tanks dried up. If he didn't have any luck pretty soon... The bugs halted, listening. Their antennae twitched suspiciously.

"What is it?" Trent asked.

"Nothing." They started on. "For a moment --"

A flash. The bugs ahead on the trail winked out of existence. A dull roar of light rolled over them.

Trent sprawled. He struggled, caught in the vines and sappy weeds. Around him bugs twisted and fought wildly. Tangling with small furry creatures that fired rapidly and efficiently with hand weapons and, when they got close, kicked and gouged with immense hind legs. Runners.

The bugs were losing. They retreated back down the trail, scattering into the jungle. The runners hopped after them, springing on their powerful hind legs like kangaroos. The last bug departed. The noise died down.

"Okay," a runner ordered. He gasped for breath, straightening up. "Where's the human?"

Trent got slowly to his feet. "Here."

The runners helped him up. They were small, not over four feet high. Fat and round, covered with thick pelts. Little good-natured faces peered up at him with concern. Beady eyes, quivering noses and great kangaroo legs. "You all right?" one asked. He offered Trent his water canteen.

"I'm all right." Trent pushed the canteen away. "They got my blaster."

The runners searched around. The blaster was nowhere to be seen.

"Let it go." Trent shook his head dully, trying to collect himself. "What happened? The light."

"A grenade." The runners puffed with pride. "We stretched a wire across the trail, attached to the pin."

"The bugs control most of this area," another said. "We have to fight our way through." Around his neck hung a pair of binoculars. The runners were armed with slug-pistols and knives.

"Are you really a human being?" a runner asked. "The original stock?"

"That's right," Trent muttered in unsteady tones.

The runners were awed. Their beady eyes grew wide. They touched his metal suit, his viewplate. His oxygen tank and pack. One squatted down and expertly traced the circuit of his transmitter apparatus.

"Where are you from?" the leader asked in his deep purr-like voice. "You're the first human we've seen in months."

Trent spun, choking. "Months? Then ..."

"None around here. We're from Canada. Up around Montreal. There's a human settlement up there."

Trent's breath came fast. "Walking distance?"

"Well, we made it in a couple of days. But we go fairly fast." The runner eyed Trent's metal-clad legs doubtfully. "I don't know. For you it would take longer."

Humans. A human settlement. "How many? A big settlement? Advanced?"

Humans. A human settlement. "How many? A big settlement? Advanced?"

"They're operating successfully? They have tools -- machinery -- compressors? Food tanks to keep going?"

The runner twisted uneasily. "As a matter of fact they may not be there any more."

Trent froze. Fear cut through him like a knife. "Not there? What do you mean?"

"They may be gone."

"Gone where?" Trent's voice was bleak. "What happened to them?"

"I don't know," the runner said. "I don't know what happened to them. Nobody knows."

He pushed on, hurrying frantically north. The jungle gave way to a bitterly cold fern-like forest. Great silent trees on all sides. The air was thin and brittle.

He was exhausted. And only one tube of oxygen remained in the tank. After that he would have to open his helmet. How long would he last? The first rain cloud would bring lethal particles sweeping into his lungs. Or the first strong wind, blowing from the ocean.

He halted, gasping for breath. He had reached the top of a long slope. At the bottom a plain stretched out -- tree-covered -- a dark green expanse, almost brown. Here and there a spot of white gleamed. Ruins of some kind. A human city had been here three centuries ago.