Philip Dick - CANTATA-141

Taking a calculated risk, Cravelli dialed Terran Development through regular vidphone channels.

When he reached TD's switchboard, he matter of factly asked to speak to Mr. Bohegian.

'How could you be so foolish as to call me direct ?' Bohegian asked nervously, when the call was put through to his office.

'Explain your message,' Tito said.

'They're educated apes,' Bohegian said, leaning close to the vidscreen and speaking in a low, urgent voice. 'You know, missing links.'

'Dawn men,' Tito said, finally understanding. He felt his heart skip a beat. 'Go on, Earl, I want to hear it all; keep talking and if you ring off, I'll call you right back, so help me God.'

Earl Bohegian muttered, 'The report was given to old Leon Turpin; he's examining it right now on floor twenty. They're trying to decide if they want to shut the 'scuttler down and wall the rent up or not. But I don't think they're gonna, not from what I've heard.'

'No,' Tito agreed. "They won't. There's too much to gain by leaving it open.'

'But they are sort of upset. Who isn't ? Imagine; here we took it for granted that humans like ourselves ...'

'Did the 'hopper specifically state which variety of sub-Homo sapiens it is ?' Cravelli asked, trying to remember his college anthropology.

'Peking man. Does that sound right ?'

Cravelli bit his lip. "That's a hell of a low-grade type. One of the lowest, Now, if it had been Cro-

Magnon or even Neanderthal. ...' That would be another matter. After all, the Palestine archeological discoveries were proof that Homo sapiens and Neanderthal had already interbred, tens of thousands of years in the past. And it had evidently done no harm; the Homo sapiens genetic strain had dominated.

"They're going to bring one back,' Bohegian said. "They've already got one inside the 'hopper, the scuttlebutt says down in the washroom at the end of my hall. And they're in lin-com with it.

It's docile, one exec told me just now. Scared out of its wits.'

'Of course it would be,' Cravelli said. 'They probably remember us from their past, remember getting rid of us.' Just as we got rid of them in our world, he thought. Wiped them utterly out.

'And now we're back,' he said. 'It must seem like black magic to them: ghosts from a hundred thousand years ago, from their own Stone Age. Jeez, what a situation!'

'I've got to ring off,' Bohegian said. 'I told you everything anyhow, Tito. When there's more...'

'Okay,' Tito Cravelli said and broke the connection.

I wonder if they'll be able to pilot that jet-hopper back across the Atlantic and then back through the rent to our world, he conjectured. Or will the Peking people get them along the way ? Good question.

This is going to work havoc with the November election, he said to himself, broodingly. Who could have possibly anticipated something like this ? Once more Tito Cravelli saw his Attorney

Generalship receding, along with Jim Briskin’s election.

These parallel worlds are a knotty problem, he realized. I wonder how many exist. Dozens ?

With a different human sub-species dominant on each ? Weird idea. He shivered. God, how unpleasant ... like concentric rings of hell, each with its own particular brand of torment.

And then he thought suddenly: Maybe there's one in which a human type superior to us, one we know nothing about, dominates; one which, in our own world, we extinguished at its inception.

Blotto, right off the bat.

Somebody ought to tinker with a 'scuttler with that in mind, Tito decided. But then, it occurred to him, they'd show up here, just the way we're appearing in Peking man's orderly little universe.

And we'd be finished. We wouldn't be able to survive the competition.

Just, he thought, as Peking man isn't going to be able to stand up to us for long.

The poor clucks. They don't know what's in store for them; their time is limited, now. Because their ancestral foe has reappeared - and right in their midst, with TV, rocket-ships, laser rifles, Hbombs, all kinds of devices inconceivable to their limited mentalities. They spent a million or two years developing a gas compressor, and what good is it going to do them, now that the chips are down ? Them and their wooden gliders that travel a hundred feet and then have to land again.

My god, we've got ships in three star systems!

And then he remembered the QB satellite.

How'd they do that ? he asked himself. Remarkable! It doesn't quite fit in. Because even so, they are an entire evolutionary step below us.

We can lick them with both hands and one frontal lobe of our brain tied behind our backs... so to speak.

But the assurance of a moment ago had left him and he did not right now feel quite so secure.

Jim Briskin, he said to himself, you just better darn well get back intact from that alternate Earth.

Because there's going to be a hard row to hoe, here, for all of us, and we need someone capable. I

can see Bill The Cat's Meatman Schwarz attempting to deal with this problem ... yes, how I can see it.

Once more he dialed TD's Washington, D.C., number and again, when 'he had their switchboard, asked for Earl Bohegian in 603.

'I want you to let me know,' Tito Cravelli instructed Bohegian when he had him, 'the moment Jim

Briskin crosses back. I don't give a damn about the others - just him. Got it, Earl ?'

'Sure, Tito,' Bohegian said, nodding.

'Can you get a message to him ? After all, he'll be there in your building, on the bottom floor.'

'I can try,' Bohegian said, sounding dubious.

'Tell him to call me.'

'Okay,' Bohegian said dutifully, 'I'll do my best.'

Ringing off, Cravelli sat back in his chair, then searched about for a cigarette. He had done all he could - for now. Here on out he could only sit and wait, at least until Jim showed up. And, he knew, that might be a long time.

He thought, then, of something interesting. Perhaps be now understood why Cally Vale had shot and killed the 'settler repairman with her laser pistol. If she had run across one of the Peking men, she probably had gone straight into hysterical shock. Had probably in her state taken the repairman for one more of them. And after all, most 'settler repairmen - at least, those he had known -were rather shambling, hunched creatures; the error was easy to comprehend, once the circumstances were known.

Poor Cally, Tito thought. Stuck over there, supposedly in safety. What a surprise it must have been, when one of those wooden gliders came sailing past, one day.

It must have been quite a meeting.

Seated in the back of the jet-hopper as it made its return flight across the Atlantic, the Peking man in his blue cloth cap and toga-like robe declared, 'My name is Bill Smith.' At least, that was the way the TD linguistics machine handled the utterance. It was the best the circuits could do.

Bill Smith, Sal Heim thought. What an appropriate name the machine's given it! As American as apple pie. He miserably inspected his wristwatch, for the tenth time. Aren't we ever going to get back across this ocean ? he wondered. It did not seem so. Time, for him, stood motionless, and he knew who to blame; it was Bill Smith's fault. Riding with him in the 'hopper was for Sal Heim a nightmare, yet totally and completely lucidly real.

'Hello, Bill Smith,' Dillingsworth was saying into the mike, now. 'We are glad to know you. We admire your science and efforts as represented by your roads, houses, gliders, ships, motor and clothing. In fact, wherever we look, we see indications of your people's ability.'

The linguistics machine produced a hubbub of grunts, squeals and yips, to which the Peking man listened with slack-jawed intensity; his small, brow-overlain eyes glazed with the effort of paying attention. With a groan, Sal Heim turned away and looked out the 'hopper window instead.