Philip Dick - CANTATA-141

And to think I handed in my resignation over a little matter like the disagreement about George

Walt, he reflected. What was that compared with this ?

To Jim Briskin, seated beside him, Sal said bitingly, I'm certainly going to be interested to hear your next speech. Got any idea what you're going to say, Jim ? For instance, about the emigration situation as regards this new development.' He waited, but Jim did not answer; hunched over, Jim somberly scrutinized his interlocked fingers. 'Maybe you could say it's going to be like the

Mason-Dixon Line,' Sal continued. 'With them on one side and us on the other. Of course, that's if these Pekes agree. And they might just not.'

'Why should they agree ?' Jim said.

'Well, we could offer them the alternative of total annihilation, if Bill Schwarz can see his way clear in that direction.'

'That's out of the question,' Jim said. 'And I know Schwarz would back me up. They've got just as much right to exist as we, especially over here. You know it and I know it and they know it.'

'Is that what you're going to say in your speech ? That it's their planet - just after having promised that all the bibs can cross over and become farmers ?'

Slowly, Jim said, 'I'm ... beginning to see what you mean.' His lean face twisted wrathfully.

'Advise me, then. Do your job.'

'This planet,' Sal said, 'will still be able to absorb seventy million bibs. They can fit in on the

North American land-mass. But there's going to be friction. People - and those deformed things -

are going to get killed. It's going to be roughly a reenactment of the situation when the first white colonists landed in the New World. You see ? The Pekes in North America will be driven back, step by step, until the continent is cleared of them; they might as well resign themselves to that, and you might as well, too. I mean, it's inevitable.'

'And then what ?'

'And then the trouble - the real trouble - comes. Because sooner or later it's going to occur to some group or some corporation that if we can use North America, we can use Europe and Asia as well. And then the fight that was fought out on both worlds fifty or a hundred thousand years ago is going to take place again, only not with flint hatchets. It'll be with tactical A-bombs and nerve gas and lasers, on our side, and on their side ..." He paused, ruminating.'... with whatever they took out the QB satellite by. Who knows ? Maybe in a million and a half years they've managed to stumble over and come up with a source of power we have no knowledge of.

Something that's beyond our conception. Had you thought of that ?'

Jim shrugged.

'And if we press them far enough,' Sal said, 'they'll have to use it on us. They'd have no choice.'

'We can always slam down the door. Close down the nexus by turning off the power supply of the 'scuttler.'

'But by that time there'll be seventy million colonists over there. Can we strand them ?'

'Of course not.'

'Then don't talk about "slamming the door down". That's not going to be the answer. The moment the first bib passes over, that's out.' Sal pondered. 'That Bill Smith, back there; for him this is like a ride in a flying saucer would be for one of us. Think what he can tell his playmates when he gets back home. If he ever does.'

'What's a flying saucer ?'

Sal said, 'Back in the twentieth century a number of people claimed ...'

'I remember,' Jim nodded.

'If you were president already,' Sal said, 'if you held formal authority, you could meet with some enormous dignitary from their world, assuming they have a government of some kind. But right now you're just a private individual; you can't bind this country to anything. And Schwarz, if history repeats itself, won't do a damn thing because he knows he'll soon be out of office. He'll leave it to be dumped in your lap. And by January it'll probably be too late to settle this peacefully.'

'Phil Danville,' Jim said, 'can write me a speech that'll capture this situation and explain it.'

Sal guffawed. 'Like hell he can. Nobody is going to be able to capture this situation, especially an intellectual simp like Phil Danville. But let him try. Let's see what Danville can come up with.'

Say by tomorrow night, Sal thought. Or the day after, at the very latest.

From his pocket he brought out the itinerary, unfolded it carefully and began to study it.

'I have to speak in Cleveland,' Jim said. 'Tonight.'

In the back of the 'hopper, the Peking man Bill Smith, by means of the linguistics equipment, was saying,'... metal is evil. It belongs inside the Earth with the dead. It is part of the once-was, where everything goes when its time is over.'

'Philosophy,' Sal said in disgust. 'Listen to him.' He jerked his head.

'And that's why you don't build with it ?' Dillingsworth asked, speaking into the mike of the machine.

'We have areas we avoid,' Jim said to Sal. 'You'd think twice before making a human skull into a drinking cup and using it every day.'

'Is that what Pekes do ?' Sal said, horrified.

'I believe I read that somewhere about them,' Jim said. 'At least their ancestors did. The practice may have disappeared by now.' He added, "They were cannibals.'

'Great,' Sal said and resumed studying the itinerary. "That's just what we need to win the election.'

'Schwarz would have brought it out,' Jim said, 'eventually.'

Glancing out the 'hopper window at the ocean below, Sal said, 'I'll be relieved to get out of here.

And you won't catch me emigrating. I'd rather do like your folks and give Mars a try, even if I

wound up dying of thirst. At least I wouldn't get eaten. And nobody would use my skull for a drinking cup.' He felt severely depressed, meditating about that, and he did his best to reinvolve his attention in the itinerary.

How's the first Negro President of the United States going to go about handling the presence of a planetful of dawn linen who've proved themselves capable of constructing a fairly adequate civilization ? Sal Heim asked himself. A race that, in theory, shouldn't have been able to get past the flint-chipping stage. But after all, each of us started out chipping flint. What's been proved here is that given time enough .,.

I know I'm right, Sal thought. There isn't a single legal basis on which these Pekes can be denied full rights under our laws - except, of course, that they're not U.S. citizens

Was that the only barrier ? He had to laugh. What a way to stop an invasion of Earth by denying the invaders citizenship.

But there was, sadly, a joker in that, too. Because U.S. citizens would be emigrating to this world, in which the jet-hopper now droned, and in this universe U.S. citizenship had no significance; the Pekes were here first and could prove prior residence. So it would be wise not to raise the issue of citizenship after all...

What'll we do, then, Sal asked himself, when our people and the Pekes begin to interbreed ? Do you want your daughter to marry a Peke ? he asked himself fiercely. Now the Ku Klux Klanners really have their job cut out for thorn.

It was potentially pretty nasty.

At the front door of Pethel Jiffi-scuttler Sales & Service, Stuart Hadley stood leaning on his autonomic broom, watching the people go past. With Dar Pethel gone today, a weight had been lifted from him; he could do what he pleased.

As he stood there mentally magnifying his new status by a few well-chosen daydreams, a slender red-haired shape, full-bosomed and young, all at once strolled up to him, her lace stormy.

'They've closed the satellite down,' Sparky said, massive, defeated bitterness.

Awakened, Hadley said, 'W-what ?'

'George Walt, that no-good crink, kicked us out this morning. It's all over up there. I have absolutely no idea why. So I came right here to you. What'll we do ?' With her toe she nudged a bit of rubbish from the sidewalk into the gutter, glumly.