Philip Dick - CANTATA-141

Horrified, Hadley rose unsteadily to his feet; he saw the two clean holes and knew that Erickson had been killed with a laser rifle, probably from a distance. Stumbling down the tube, Hadley reached the controls of the 'scuttler and cut the power off; the shimmer of the entrance hoop at once vanished, and he knew or hoped - that now they, whoever they were who had murdered

Rick Erickson, could not follow him through.

'Pethel!' he shouted. 'Come down here!' He ran to Erickson's work bench and the intercom. 'Mr.

Pethel,' he said, 'come back down here to the basement right away. Erickson's dead.'

The next he knew, Darius Pethel stood beside him, examining the body of the repairman. 'He must have found it,' Pethel muttered, ashen-faced and trembling. 'Well, he got paid for his nosiness; he sure got paid.'

'We better get the police,' Hadley said.

'Yes.' Pethel nodded vacantly. 'Of course. I see you turned it off. Good thing. We better leave it strictly alone. The poor guy, the poor goddam guy; look at what he got for being smart enough to figure it all out. Look, he's got something in his hand.' He bent down, opening Erickson's fingers.

The dead hand held a wad of grass.

'No org-trans operation can help him, either,' Pethel said. 'Because the beam caught him in the head. Got his brain. Too bad.' He glanced at Stuart Hadley. 'Anyhow the best org-trans surgeon is Sands and he isn't going to do anything to help Erickson. You can make book on that.'

'A place where there's grass,' Hadley murmured, touching the contents of the dead man's hand.

'Where can it be ? Not on Earth. Not now, anyway.'

'Must be the past,' Pethel said. 'So we've got time-travel. Isn't it great ?' His face twisted with grief. 'Terrific beginning, one good man dead. How many left to go ? Imagine a guy's reputation meaning that much to him, that he'd let this happen. Or maybe Sands doesn't know; maybe she was just given the laser gun to protect herself. In case his wife's private cops got to her. And anyhow, we don't know for sure if she did it; it could have been someone else entirely, not Cally

Vale at all. What do we know about it ? All we know is that Erickson is dead. And there was something basically wrong with the theory he was going on.'

'You can give Sands the benefit of the doubt, if you want,' Hadley said, 'but I'm not going to.' He stood up, then, taking a deep shuddering breath. 'Can we get the police, now ? You call them; I can't talk well enough to. You do it, Pethel, okay ?'

Unsteadily, Darius Pethel moved toward the phone on Erickson's work bench, his hand extended gropingly, as if his perception of touch had begun to disintegrate. He picked up the receiver, and then he turned to Stuart Hadley and said, 'Wait. This is a mistake. You know who we've got to call ? The factory. We have to tell Terran Development about this; it's what they're after. They come first.'

Hadley, staring at him, said, 'I - don't agree.'

This is more important than what you think or I think, more important than Sands and Cally

Vale, any of us.' Dar Pethel began to dial. 'Even if one of us is dead. That still doesn't matter.

You know what I'm thinking about ? Emigration. You saw the grass in Erickson's hand. You know what it means. It means the hell with that girl on the far side, or whoever it is over there who shot Erickson. It means the hell with any of us and all of us, our sentiments and opinions.'

He gestured. 'All our lives put together.'

Dimly, Stuart Hadley understood. Or thought he did. 'But she'll probably kill the next person who ...'

'Let TD worry about that,' Pethel said savagely. 'That's their problem. They've got company police, armed guards they use for patrol purposes; let them send them over, first.' His voice was low and harsh. 'Let them lose a few men, so what. The lives of millions of people are involved in this, now. You get that, Hadley ? Do you ?'

'Y-yes,' Hadley said, nodding.

'Anyhow,' Pethel said, more calmly, now, 'it's legitimately within the jurisdiction of TD because it look place within one of their 'scuttlers. Call it an accident; think of it that way. Unavoidable and awful. Between an entrance and an exit hoop. Naturally the company has to know.' He turned his back to Hadley, then, concentrating on the vidphone, calling Leon Turpin, the chief of

TD.

'I think,' Salisbury Heim said to his presidential candidate James Briskin, 'I have something cooking you won't like. I've been talking to George Walt...'

At once Jim Briskin said, 'No deal. Not with them. I know what they want and that's out, Sal.'

'If you don't do business with George Walt,' Heim said steadily, 'I'm going to have to resign as your campaign manager. I just can't take any more, not after that planet-wetting speech of yours.

Things are breaking too badly for us as it is, we can't take George Walt on in addition to everything else.'

'There's something even worse,' Jim Briskin said, after a pause. 'Which you haven't heard. A wire came from Bruno Mini. He was delighted with my speech and he's on his way here to - as he puts it - "join forces with me." '

Heim said, 'But you can still...'

'Mini's already spoken to homeopape reporters. So it's too late to head him off media-wise. Sorry.'

'You're going to lose.'

'Okay, I'll have to lose.'

'What gets me,' Heim said bitterly, 'what really gets me is that even if you did win the election you couldn't have it all your way; one man just can't alter things that much. The Golden Door

Movements of Bliss satellite is going to remain; the bibs are going to remain; so are Nonovulid and the abort-consultants you can chip away a little here and there but not...'

He ceased, because Dorothy Gill had come up to Jim Briskin. 'A phone call for you, Mr. Briskin.

The gentleman says it's urgent and he won't be wasting your time. You don't know him, he says, so he didn't give his name.' She added, 'He's a Col. If that helps you identify him.'

'It doesn't,' Jim said. 'But I'll talk to him anyhow.' Obviously, he was glad to break off the conversation with Sal; relief showed on his face. 'Bring the phone here, Dotty.'

'Yes, Mr. Briskin.' She disappeared and presently was back, carrying the extension vidphone.

'Thanks.' Jim Briskin pressed the hold button, releasing it, and the vidscreen glowed. A face formed, swarthy and handsome, a keen-eyed man, well-dressed and evidently agitated. Who is he ? Sal Heim asked himself. I know him. I've seen a pic of him somewhere.

Then he identified the man. It was the big-time N'York investigator who was working for Myra

Sands; it was a man named Tito Cravelli, and he was a tough individual indeed. What did he want with Jim ?

The image of Tito Cravelli said, 'Mr. Briskin, I'd like to have lunch with you. In private. I have something to discuss with you, just you and me; it's vitally important to you, I assure you.' He added, with a glance toward Sal Heim, 'So vital I don't want anybody else around.'

Maybe this is going to be an assassination attempt, Sal Heim thought. Someone, a fanatic from

CLEAN, sent by Verne Engel and his crowd of nuts. 'You better not go, Jim,' he said aloud.

'Probably not,' Jim said. 'But I am anyhow.' To the image on the vidscreen he said, 'What time and where ?'

Tito Cravelli said, There's a little restaurant in the N'York slum area, in the five hundred block of

Fifth Avenue; I always eat there when I'm in N'York - the food's prepared by hand. It's called

Scotty's Place. Will that be satisfactory ? Say at one p.m., N'York time.'

'All right,' Jim Briskin agreed. 'At Scotty's Place at one o'clock. I've been there.' He added tartly,

They're willing to serve Cols.'

'Everyone serves Cols,' Tito said, 'when I'm along.' He broke the connection; the screen faded and died.