Philip Dick - CANTATA-141

I wonder why it's no longer functioning, Pethel mused. Has something gotten fouled up, over there ? It didn't sound like a good omen; it made him uncomfortable.

On the other side, amid a meadow of excellently green grass and small white flowers, they, now a party of thirty, boarded an express jet-hopper which TD engineers hid somehow managed to disassemble, pass through the rent, and then reassemble. Almost at once the 'hopper rose and soared out over the Atlantic, toward the northern coast of France.

Watching a flight of gulls, Jim Briskin thought: From this vantage point, it appears no different from our own world. The gulls disappeared behind them as the jet-hopper hurried on. Will we see ships of any sort on this ocean ? he wondered.

Fifteen minutes later, by his wristwatch, he saw a slip below.

It did not seem to be large. But it was ocean-going, and that, he decided, was something. Of course it was wooden; he took that for granted, as did the others in the 'hopper, all of whom were pressed against the windows, peering out. The ship, did not have sails, but it also lacked a stack.

What propels it ? he wondered. More nonsense machinery. If not the expansion of ice, then by all means the popping of paper bags.

The pilot of the jet-hopper swooped low over the ship; they were treated to a thorough look, at least momentarily. Figures on the deck scampered about in agitation, then disappeared down below, lost from sight. The ship continued on. And, presently, the 'hopper left it behind.

'We didn't learn much,' Dillingsworth, the anthropologist, said in disappointment. 'How long before we reach Normandy ?'

'Another half hour,' the pilot said.

They saw, then, a collection of small boats, perhaps a fishing fleet; the boats were anchored, and they did have sails. Aboard, the sailors gaped up at the sight of the 'hopper, frozen in their positions as if carved there. Again the 'hopper dipped low.

The anthropologist, staring down, said, 'Lower.'

'Can't,' the pilot answered. 'Too dangerous; we're overloaded'

'What's the matter ?' the sociologist from the University of California, Edward Marshak, asked

Dillingsworth. 'What did you see ?'

After a time Dillingsworth said, 'As soon as we reach the European landmass, as soon as we can land, let's do so. Let's not wait to seek out their centers of concentration; I want to have us set down by the first one of them we spot.'

The fishing boats disappeared behind them.

With shaking hands, Dillingsworth opened a textbook which he had brought, began turning pages. He did not allow anyone else to see its title; he sat off, by himself, in a corner of the

'hopper, a brooding, dark expression on his face.

Stanley, the senior official from TD, said inquiringly, 'Do you think we should turn back ?'

'Hell no,' Dillingsworth rasped. And that was all he said; he did not amplify.

Next to Jim Briskin, the round, heavy-set little businessman from Kansas City leaned over and said, 'He makes me nervous; he's found something and he won't say what it is. It was when he saw those fishermen. I was watching his face, and he almost fainted.'

Amused, Jim said, 'Take it easy, Mr. Pethel. We still have a long way to go.'

I'm going to find out what it was,' Pethel said. He scrambled to his feet and made his way over to

Dillingsworth. 'Tell me,' he said. 'Why keep it quiet ? It must have been pretty bad to make you clam up like this. What could you possibly have seen in those few seconds that would make you react this way ? Personally, I don't think we should go on until...'

'Look at it this way,' Dillingsworth said. 'If I'm wrong, it doesn't matter. If I'm right ...' He looked past Pethel to Jim Briskin. 'We'll know all about it before we make our return trip, later today.'

After a pause, Jim said, 'That's good enough. For me, at least.'

Fuming, Darius Pethel returned to his seat. 'If I had known it'd be like this...'

'Wouldn't you have come ?' Jim asked him.

'I don't know. Possibly not.'

Stirring restlessly, Sal Heim said, 'I didn't realize there was going to be any hazard involved in this.'

'What did you think,' one of the newsmen asked him, 'when they took our QB satellite out ?'

'I just learned about that,' Sal snapped back, 'as we were entering the damn 'scuttler.'

A photographer for one of the big homeopapes said, 'How about a game of draw ? Jacks or better to open, penny a chip but no table limit.'

Within a minute, the game had started.

Ahead, on the horizon, Sal Heim thought he saw something and he took a quick look at his wristwatch. That's Normandy, he realized. We're almost there. He felt his breath stifle in his throat; he could hardly breathe. God, I'm tense, he decided. That anthropologist really shook me.

But too late to turn back now. We're fully committed; and anyhow it would look bad, politicallyspeaking, if Jim Briskin backed out. No, for our own good we have to continue whether we want to or not.

'Set us right down,' Dillingsworth instructed the pilot in a clipped, urgent tone of voice.

'Do so,' Don Stanley of TD chimed in. The pilot nodded.

They were over open countryside, now; the coastline had already fallen behind them, the wavewashed shore. Sal Heim saw a road. It was not much of a road, but it could hardly be mistaken for anything else, and, looking along it, he made out in the distance a vehicle, a sort of cart.

Somebody going uneventfully along the road, on his routine business, Sal realized. He could see the wheels of the cart, now, and its load. And, in the front, the driver, who wore a blue cap. The driver did not look up. Evidently he was not aware of the 'hopper. And then Sal Heim realized that the pilot had cut the jets. The 'hopper was coasting silently down.

'I'm going to place it on the road,' the pilot explained.

'Directly in front of his cart.' He snapped on a retrojet, briefly, to brake the 'hopper's fall.

Dillingsworth said, 'Christ, I was right.'

As the 'hopper struck, almost all of them were already on their feet, peering at the cart ahead, trying to discover what it was that the anthropologist saw. The cart had stopped. The driver stood up in his seat and stared at the jet-hopper, at them inside it.

Sal Heim thought, There's something wrong with that man. He's - deformed.

A homeopape reporter said gruffly, 'Must be from wartime radiation, from fallout. God, he looks awful.'

'No,' Dillingsworth said. 'That's not from fallout. Haven't you seen that before ? 'Where have you seen it before ? Think.'

'In a book,' the little businessman from Kansas City said. 'It's in the book you have there.' He pointed at Dillingsworth. 'You looked it up after we passed those fishing boats!' His voice rose squeakily.

Jim Briskin said, 'He's one of the races of pre-humans.'

'He's of the Paleoanthropic wing of primate evolution,' Dillingsworth said. 'I'd guess

Sinanthropus, a rather high form of Pithecanthropi, or Peking man, as he is called. Notice the low vault of the skull, the very heavy brow ridge which runs unbroken across the forehead above the eyes. The chin is undeveloped. These are simian features, lost by the true line of Homo sapiens.

The brain capacity, however, is reasonably large, almost as great as our own. Needless to say, the teeth are quite different from our own.' He added, 'In our world, this branch of primate evolution came to an end in the Lower Pleistocene, about a million and a half years ago.'

'Have we ... gone back in time ?' the Kansas City businessman asked.

'No,' Dillingsworth said irritably. 'Not one week. Evidently here Homo sapiens either did not appear at all or for some reason did not win out. And Sinanthropus became the dominant species.

As in our world we are.'

Frank Woodbine said, 'Yes, I thought he stooped. That one who jumped out of the glider yesterday.' His voice shook.