Philip Dick - CANTATA-141

'Didn't I just now get through saying that party doesn't count ?' He glared at her; Pat shrank back.

'To cope with this we've got to think along entirely novel lines - everything is changed. I noticed one interesting thing. When George Walt were on they referred to us as "you Homo sapiens."

Does that mean they're not ? My god, you can't become a converted Sinanthropus; it's not like a church. I really have to talk to someone about this besides you,' he said scathingly to his wife.

'Someone who can come up with answers.'

Pat said, 'What about ?'

'Wait,' He turned back to the TV screen. George Walt had once more appeared. 'They look older,'

Sal said. 'I can't remember which of them is the artificial body. The one on right, as I recall. The real one has certainly done a good job of building it back, after we tore it to pieces.' He chuckled.

'We had them on the run, then. Our finest hour.' Once more he became grim. 'Too bad it's not like that now.'

'You know who I was going to suggest you call ? Tito Cravelli. He always seems to be able to figure out what's happening.'

'Okay.' He nodded absently. 'Give me the phone; I'll call Tito.' He got to his feet, then. 'No, I'll get it myself. Why should you wait on me ?' At the vidphone he paused and turned toward her.

'I'm sure it's the one on the right. You know, I'll bet at this moment everybody, including even

Verne Engel and every last damn member of that rotten bunch CLEAN, would give his shirt if we could go back to, say, a month ago. To the way we were and the so-called "race problem" we had then. That's who I ought to call: Verne Engel. You know what I'd say to him ? "You stupid bastard, does what you're fighting for look so real now ? Skin pigment. What a laugh! Why not eye color ? Too bad nobody ever thought of that. It cuts it a little finer, but basically it's the same thing. Okay, Verne, you get out there and die over the issue of upholding one certain eye color.

Lots of luck." ' Picking up the vidphone he dialed.

Pat said, 'What color eyes do Peking men have ?' Glaring at her Sal said, 'Christ, how would I

know ?' 'I just wondered. I never thought of it before.' 'Hello, Tito ?' Sal said, as the vidscreen lighted. 'Get us out of this,' Sal said. 'Find where they're getting through into our world and plug it up, an then we'll figure out how to knock down the Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite.

You agree ? Tito, say something.'

'I know where they're getting through,' Tito said, laconically.

Sal turned to his wife. 'You were right. He does know.' He turned back to the vidscreen. 'Well, what do we do ? How do we...'

'We make a deal,' Tito Cravelli said in a harsh, totally dry voice.

Staring at him Sal said, 'We what ? I don't believe it.'

'And we'll be lucky if we can manage that,' Tito added. 'There are a few things you don't know,

Sal. This attack on us by the Pekes is coming out of a hundred years in the future. George Walt have had an entire century to work with them, filling in the gaps in their culture, teaching them as many of our techniques as they could cram into them in that time... and it's a very long time.

Don't ask me how I found this out; just take my word that it's the case. The nexus that they're using is at TD, but we can't dose it; they're supplying it with power from the other side, a possibility which doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone at TD until it was too late. In other words, until now.'

'What kind of deal ?'

'I don't know yet. I'm seeing Jim Briskin in a few moments; we're going to try to think of something we can offer them - offer George Walt actually, since they're doing the talking. As I

see it, the Pekes don't actually need to expand into our world; they haven't even filled up their own. They have no pressing population problem, as we have. So there may be something they want and can use more than mere land. Because that's all they're going to find if they try to come over here. I know damn well our people will put up a fight until there's nothing left standing. It'll be a scorched-earth planet... we can promise them that. As a starter.'

Turning to Pat, Sal said, 'We're going to make a deal; there's no other way out.'

'I heard,' she said. 'I wish I hadn't; I didn't want to hear that.'

'Isn't that something ? Our ancestors didn't make a deal. They wiped the Pekes out.'

'But now,' Pat said, 'they have George Walt.'

He nodded. Evidently that made the difference. But he had a terrible feeling that Tito Cravelli was wrong as to the quantity of techniques that George Walt had passed on to the Pekes. His intuition was that the transfer of knowledge had gone the other way: it had been the Pekes who had educated George Walt.

Jim Briskin said half-ironically, 'We can offer them the Encyclopedia Britannica, translated into their language.' If they have a written language, he added to himself. Or if George Walt haven't given them that already. 'Maybe George Walt have passed them everything they'll ever need,' he said to Tito Cravelli, who sat moodily facing him across the room. 'I'd assume that during the next century George Walt probably have gone back and forth continually.' He could picture it, and it was not encouraging.

'Who can we ask for help from ?' Sal Heim said, to no one in particular. 'Call God.' His wife patted his arm, sympathetically. 'Don't do that,' Sal complained. 'It distracts me. In the name of something-or-other there must be somebody we can turn to.'

The vidphone rang and Tito Cravelli rose to answer it After a few moments he returned. 'That was my contact at TD. At this moment, while we're sitting here muttering pointless maledictions,

Pekes are pouring through the rent.'

Everyone in the room stared at him.

'That's right,' Tito said, nodding. "So already now the TD administration building is full of then; in fact they're beginning to leak out into downtown Washington, D.C. Leon Turpin's been conversing with President Schwarz, but so far ...' He shrugged. 'They erected a concrete barrier in front of the rent but the Pekes simply moved the rent to one side. And kept on coming across.' He added, 'Bohegian, my contact, is leaving the TD building; they're being evacuated.'

'Christ,' Sal Heim said. 'Christ, sweet shimmering Christ.'

Pat Heim said, 'You know who I'd like to see you talk to ?' She glanced around at the others. 'Bill

Smith.'

'Who's that ?' Cravelli asked sharply. 'Oh yeah. The Peke. That anthropologist Dillingsworth has him. What could Bill Smith tell us ?'

'He would know what they lack,' Patricia said. 'Maybe for instance they've been trying for a dozen centuries to achieve a space drive. We could turn a small rocket engine over to them, one with only a million pounds of thrust or so. Or maybe they don't have music. Think what it would mean: we could start them out with single instruments such as the harmonica or the Jew's harp or the electric guitar

'Yes,' Cravelli agreed acidly, 'But George Walt have already done that. At least, we've got to assume that. You heard that Peke talking Latin; I didn't grasp, really genuinely grasp, how much

George Walt have accomplished until I heard that ... then I threw in the sponge. I don't mind admitting it; that's when I gave up, pure and simple.'

'And decided to plead for a deal,' Sal Heim said, half to himself.

'That's right,' Cravelli said. 'Then I knew we had to come to some kind of terms. It didn't terrify you to hear Sinanthropus talking Latin ? It should have.'

'I've got it,' Pat Heim said. 'That one Sinanthropus, that old white-haired so-called philosopher up in the satellite, he's a mutant. More evolved than the others, greater cranial area or something, especially in the forehead region. Unique. George Wall are pulling the wool over our eyes.'