Philip Dick - CANTATA-141

He reacted. It was superb corto-thalamic response; he was all there, as alert as fine steel. The time had arrived for one of those unique, binding-type decisions which would shape everything to come. 'You set out for the right place, Sparky,' he informed her.

'I know that, Stuart.'

'We'll emigrate.' There it was, the decision.

She glanced sharply up. 'How ? Where ? To Mars ?'

'I love you,' Hadley announced to her. He had given it a great deal of thought. The hell with his wife Mary and his job - everything that made up his little routine life.

"Thank you, Stuart,' Sparky said. 'I'm glad you do. But explain where you and I are going to go, for chrissakes, especially where they can't find us.'

'I've got contacts,' Hadley said. 'Believe me, have I got contacts! You know where I can put us ?'

In a flash he had it all planned; it leaped fully formed, completed, into his busy brain. 'Get set

Sparky.'

I'm set.' She eyed him.

'Across. To that virgin world Jim Briskin talked about in his Chicago speech. I can actually - and

I'm not kidding you - get us there.'

She was impressed. Her eyes grew large. 'Gee.'

'So go and pack your things,' Hadley instructed her rapidly. 'Give me your vidnumber at your conapt. As soon as I've got the details set up, I'll call you and we'll take off for Washington, D.C.'

He explained, "That's where the nexus is, right now. At TD. That makes it awkward, naturally, but we can still do it.'

'How'll we live over there, Stuart ?

'Let me handle that.' He had worked it all out. It practically blinded him, it was so entire. 'Get going - that damn law that forbids us to meet down here, we don't want to get picked up before we can get away.' And, in addition to the police, he also was thinking about Mary. Every now and then his wife dropped by the store. One glimpse of Sparky and it would be all over; he would be married the rest of his life, possibly two hundred more years. It was not much of a prospect.

On the inside of a match-folder Sparky wrote her vidnumber and gave it to him. He put it away reverently in his billfold and then resumed sweeping with the autonomic broom.

'You're sweeping ? ' Sparky exclaimed. 'I thought we were going to emigrate from Earth; isn't that what you just now said ?'

'I'm waiting,' Hadley explained patiently. 'For my top-level contact. Nobody can cross over unless they've got someone they know placed up high, there, at TD. My contact's got carte blanche at TD; he's a wheel. But I have to wait for him to get back here.' He explained, 'He's been at TD all day, on important business.'

'Ding-aling,' Sparky said, awed.

He gave her a swift, brief goodbye kiss and sent her off; her slim figure receded down the sidewalk and then was lost, for the time being, to sight. Hadley swept on, plotting in his mind the last, infinitely tiny details of his scheme. Everything - unfortunately - depended on Darius Pethel.

I hope he shows up soon, Hadley said to himself. Before I jump clear out of my skin.

Two hours later, Darius Pethel appeared from the direction of the all day parking lot, his face gray. Mumbling, he passed by Hadley, who still stood out front, and vanished into the store.

Something was bothering Dar, Hadley realized. Bad time to prevail on him, but what choice did he have ? He followed after Pethel and found him in the rear office, hanging up his coat.

Pethel said, 'What a day. I wish I could tell you what we ran into over there, but I can't. It's classified; we all agreed. At least we got back here. That's something.' He began rolling up his sleeves and taking an initial look at the day's mail on his desk.

'You've really got those bigshots at TD over a barrel.' Hadley said. 'You could whip that 'scuttler out of there any time, so fast it'd make their heads swim. And then where'd they be ? In fact I'd say you're one of the most important persons in the universe, right now.'

Seated at his desk, Pethel eyed him sourly.

Huskily, Stuart Hadley said, 'How about it, Dar ?'

'How about what ?'

'Set it up so I can go across.'

Pethel stared at him as if he were deranged, and repellently so. 'Get out of here.' He began tearing open his mail.

'I mean it,' Hadley said. I'm in love, Dar. I'm leaving. You can get me - the two of us - out of here and across to the other side where we can start our lives over.'

'First of all,' Pethel said, 'you don't know what's over there; you don't have the slightest idea."

'I know what Jim Briskin said in his speech.'

'Briskin, when he made that speech, hadn't been over there either. Second, Mary would never ...'

'I don't mean Mary,' Hadley said. I'm going with someone else, the first person I ever met who really understood and I could talk to instead of live out a fake role in front of. Sparky and I are going to be the first couple to emigrate and take up a new life in a virgin world half-way down the tube of that Jiffi-scuttler. Don't try to talk me out of it; it's impossible. Write out some sort of note that'll get me into TD's labs. We're depending on you, Dar. Two human lives ...'

'Aw for god's sake,' Pethel protested. 'How are you going to live over there ?'

'How did Cally Vale live ?'

'Sands transported one of these old obsolete A-bomb shelters over. Subsurface. Filled with supplies. She lived down in that.'

Hadley said, 'Is the shelter still over there ?'

'Of course. What would be the point of transporting it back ?'

'We'll live in that, then. Until we can build.'

'What happens when the food in the shelter runs out ? Assuming it hasn't already.'

Seating himself on the edge of Dar Pethel's desk, Hadley said, 'I called around. You can pick up one of those colonization units dirt cheap these days; the manufacturers are going broke because virtually nobody is emigrating. They're glad to get rid of one at any price, and the unit contains autonomic farming equipment, well-drilling rig, basic tools for...'

'Okay,' Pethel said, nodding. 'I know what those colonization units contain; I admit one of them can sustain you indefinitely. So you got that part figured out - not bad.'

With fat, sleek pride Hadley said, 'I've even arranged for the unit to be delivered at TD's offices in Washington later today.' He had thought of everything. 'Let's be realistic, Dar; a lot of people are going to be emigrating, and I want to get there first. I want things to be good for me and

Sparky. So will you write out whatever it'll take to get her and me into TD and into that

'scuttler ? I ought to have some priority; I was down in the repair department with Erickson when it happened, remember ?' He waited. Pethel said nothing. 'Come on,' Hadley said. 'The forces of time and change are running against you, Dar. And you know it, deep down inside.'

'Yes, but they always have,' Pethel murmured. He got a sheet of paper, brought out his pen. 'Are you really in - how did you describe it ? - love with her ?'

Hadley said, 'On my mother's honor.'

Wincing, Pethel began to write.

'I'll never forget you for this,' Hadley said. 'And I hate like hell to leave you stranded with no sales manager ... but it can't be helped; she's depending on me.' He explained, 'George Walt, you know, those two mutants who own the satellite, they closed everything down.'

Pethel ceased writing, lifted his head. 'No kidding.' He scowled. 'I wonder what that means. I

wonder what they have in mind.'

'Who cares what they have in mind ?' Hadley said fervently. 'I'm getting out of here.'

'But I'm not,' Pethel pointed out. He slowly resumed writing, deep in frowning thought.

When Leon Turpin, chairman of the board of directors of Terran Development, heard the news about the Pekes he was fit to be tied. How can we get any new industrial techniques out of that!